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As the IT landscape evolves beyond familiar technological advancements like AI, cybersecurity, and remote work, broader trends are quietly and fundamentally reshaping the channel. Seizing these opportunities can help channel partners differentiate in a competitive marketplace. Learn how you can leverage these macroeconomic trends to deliver cutting-edge solutions to your customers and accelerate your growth.
1. Increase in corporate acquisitions
Across industries, increasing acquisitions are driving innovation and market expansion. Recent high-profile acquisitions such as Cisco's acquisition of Splunk and Alphabet's acquisition of HubSpot highlight this trend. These acquisitions are prime examples of technology companies leveraging complementary expertise to reduce time to market and share the costs and risks associated with developing new products.
These acquisitions provide MSPs and resellers the opportunity to combine the strengths of multiple technology giants to deliver integrated solutions that deliver greater innovation and value to their customers.
2. Growth of startups backed by major tech companies
Large industry-leading companies like Microsoft and AWS are investing in emerging startups driving innovation and market-ready solutions in the areas of AI, quantum computing, data analytics, and security, such as Microsoft's $11 billion investment in OpenAI and AWS' $4 billion investment in Anthropic. These investments enable startups to accelerate their innovation cycles and provide large tech companies with access to cutting-edge technologies.
By focusing on these ventures, channel partners are able to deliver innovative customer solutions that leverage the breakthrough products and services of well-funded startups to expand their own product portfolios.
3. Growth of the telecommunications cloud market
Telecommunications companies are increasingly moving their operations to the cloud for greater scalability, flexibility and cost-efficiency. Recognizing this need, leading companies are teaming up to facilitate this transition. Dell's partnership with Nokia and the recent partnership with Ericsson are emblematic of this trend.
Cloudification enables carriers to provide better service to their customers and operate more efficiently. This trend presents an opportunity for channel partners to provide expert cloud migration services and ongoing cloud management support, helping improve margins and agility for Cellular Service Providers (CSPs).
4. Demand for sustainable IT and green technology
Sustainability is now a strategic imperative and a key element of most organizations' environmental, social and governance (ESG) policies. Gartner predicts that by 2027, 25% of CIO compensation will be tied to impact on sustainable technology. Implementing sustainable IT solutions is not only essential to meet regulations and stakeholder expectations, but also to drive long-term business success and resilience.
MSPs can guide their customers to align with ESG initiatives to reduce their carbon footprint and implement energy-efficient solutions, and resellers play a key role in sourcing and supplying environmentally friendly servers and recyclable hardware.
Capitalize on emerging trends for in-channel growth
These overarching trends create significant opportunities for MSPs and resellers in the channel. Staying informed and educated on the latest acquisitions and strategic alliances, well-funded marketplace startups, and trends such as the shift to the telco cloud and the growing demand for sustainable solutions will position channel partners to succeed in a rapidly evolving marketplace.
Another powerful strategy for growth is to leverage the AI ecosystem. Learn about the various AI tools that can help power your business.
