News in the Channel - issue #44

COMMENT

Changing landscape AI’s influence is increasing in almost every aspect of how businesses operate, and it is necessarily changing how channel businesses interact with their customers. But while there are threats posed by AI, there are also plenty of opportunities too.

In almost every conversation I have with resellers, MSPs, OEMs and others, AI crops up at some point. But then that reflects the reality in the channel: AI is permeating almost every aspect of business life, and, as predicted by experts a couple of years ago, it is changing how businesses and, therefore, channel partners, work – but perhaps not in ways originally anticipated. For instance, research by Sophos found that 46% of MSPs’ customers currently rely on them to act as their chief information security officer, something that most expect to see grow in the next year as businesses – especially SMBs – seek trusted advisors to help navigate cybersecurity risk, compliance obligations and increasingly complex security environments as they don’t have the capacity in-house. Read more on p20. AI is also changing the software as a service (SaaS) landscape. While the talked-of ‘SaaSpocalipse’ has failed to materialise as businesses haven’t coded their own solutions, SaaS is evolving nonetheless. Demand for SaaS solutions is growing, but with AI as a part of it to change how people interact with the solution and increasing their expectations of what it can do. Read more on p25. However, a downside of AI is that it is playing a leading role in the increase in the number and complexity of

cyberthreats that businesses must contend with. One of the most vulnerable sectors is education – as they have lots of valuable data, but also often a lack of budget for security – which is why resellers have a vital role to play in keeping customers in this sector safe. Read more on p52. Allied to this, backup as a service (BaaS) is growing in popularity as many businesses now view it as when rather than if they suffer a cybersecurity breach. In that event, being able to restore systems and data quickly is imperative, which increases the importance of backups. However, with the increasing complexity of backing systems up, more businesses are looking to buy this in as a managed service, which provides opportunities for channel businesses. Find out more on p42. All this shows how AI is providing opportunities to those channel businesses that are moving with the times – and this is only going to grow in the coming months and years. As always, I hope you enjoy the issue. News in the Channel is for everyone working in the channel, so if you have a topic you’d like to see covered in a future issue – or a news story or opinion piece you'd like to submit for consideration for publication – please drop me a line at dan@newsinthechannel.com. n

Dan Parton