THOUGHT LEADERSHIP
The evolving priorities of managed service providers in today’s hybrid, budget-pressured market
Brendan White, EVP, Service Operations at Thrive, explains why MSPs must pivot toward delivering cost-predictable, secure and unified hybrid-cloud environments.
There is a growing need to deliver more with less across numerous industries, and IT leaders are no exception. Resilience expectations are rising, security requirements are tightening, and boards still want visible progress on innovation. At the same time, budgets are flat or even shrinking, and bills associated with cloud projects are under sharper scrutiny. That combination is reshaping what organisations need from their managed service providers (MSPs) and is also rewriting how MSPs themselves design and run cloud platforms for their customers. For many organisations today, the conversation has moved away from cloud at any conceivable cost. In its place is a push for predictability, governance and performance that can be measured and defended. Beyond workload migration, demand is growing for sustainable cloud workload management, with clear accountability for what is spent, where data resides and how services perform over time. This is the foundation for where MSPs will need to prioritise their efforts in 2026 and beyond.
down the line, towards a model that aligns spend with consumption, while avoiding any nasty surprises along the way. This trend is being intensified by new cost drivers. Organisations are being pressed to invest in AI capabilities, and much of that investment competes with existing IT spend. At the same time, traditional vendors have increased costs in areas such as private cloud software licensing. Many of the major cloud providers have also signalled price rises. CFOs are asking the tougher questions sooner as a result, while IT leaders are looking for cloud strategies that stand up to financial scrutiny. For MSPs, the value proposition is changing. Customers are less impressed by another set of dashboards. Instead, they expect cost governance that is practical and connected to decision- making, rather than a quarterly reporting exercise that arrives too late to act on properly. MSPs must provide tangible outcomes to be successful.
Brendan White
thrivenextgen.com
Budget pressures are now
design constraints Budget pressures are design constraints that influence architecture choices from the start. In practical terms, that means a shift away from uncontrolled public cloud sprawl and potential unforeseen costs later
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