Get ready to peer into the crystal ball.
ChannelPro has compiled an insightful collection of quotes from visionary minds, thought leaders, and IT industry experts, offering glimpses of what 2024 may hold. These voices can help illuminate the path ahead – and spark ideas – for MSPs.
Pasquale DiMaio, vice president of Amazon Connect, AWS
“Generative AI is showing the potential to transform the customer experience in profound ways. The most thoughtful contact center leaders will move from reactive customer support to proactive relationship-building through frictionless and personalized experiences that is delivered 24/7. At the same, customers will adopt their own GenAI [generative AI] tools to engage with companies and their contact centers. Contact center leaders must be prepared for these new customer-driven automated interactions that will fundamentally change the way they have to provide customer service. Truly harnessing the power of AI will require driving change and adapting new customer behaviors, but the payoff in customer satisfaction and loyalty make it a necessary evolution.”
Lisa McGarvey
Lisa McGarvey, vice president, Vertical Markets, Alliances and Solution Aggregation, TD SYNNEX
“The focus on AI – and specifically the emergence of GenAI – will propel new types of ecosystem partners that will evolve and invest in skill sets to participate in new end user opportunities that drive efficiency and use cases across industries leveraging Gen AI. As an example, we will see an evolution of AI MSPs to support data modeling, security, and compliance in regulatory areas.”
Raffael Marty, executive vice president and general manager, Cybersecurity, ConnectWise
Raffael Marty
“We’ll see an even greater trend toward consolidation of security tools and capabilities, as well as a move of medium and small business to a services-based approach. MSPs will play an ever more important role in that value chain, helping deliver security services to these market segments. These SMBs won’t be able to find or keep the right talent to build out their own in-house services. Nor will it make financial sense for them to do so given the ever-changing complexities of the threat and technology landscape. Scale will come from the MSP space as well as from the vendors that supply the MSPs.”
Trevor Serebro
Trevor Serebro, North American MSP channel manager, Kaspersky
“One of the critical challenges I see moving into 2024 is building a cyber-aware workforce. With over 70% of attacks coming from the human factor, some sort of human involvement in building the human firewall is critical. It’s the big thing that customers as well as MSPs have to tackle – and rather soon.”
Rahul Pawar
Rahul Pawar, global vice president, Commvault
“When it comes to cyber preparedness, I expect the level of engagement by members of the C-suite, including the CEO, to go up in 2024. … The importance of cyber preparedness must be a top-down initiative. In 2024, boards will also expect more dedication from the C-suite to ensure organizations are looking holistically at their security posture – from detection, to protection and recovery. In addition, with new laws being passed like the SEC ruling, the Caremark Act in the U.S., IRAP, and DORA, increased involvement from the C-suite will be critical.”
Attila Török
Attila Török, CISO, GoTo
“For many organizations, 2024 will be the year of budget cuts. Now more than ever, CISOs need to ‘follow the money,’ and show they are focusing on protecting what matters to the company. The security teams that can demonstrate exactly what their budgets are covering, the resulting business revenue, and risk mitigation will have a much easier time getting funds when wallets are tight. The start of the new year is an important time to review a business’ major tools and processes, and overhaul or eliminate anything that’s not working. Make sure software and infrastructure is properly integrated, and existing procedures are streamlined to save valuable time and resources. As budgets shrink, CISOs are under increasing pressure to understand exactly where money is being spent, whether those are the optimal areas of investment, and demonstrate ROI. Posture management can help show that, whether it is CSPM (cloud posture management), DSPM (data security posture management), or Network SPM.”
Mike Anderson, global channels director, EasyDMARC
Mike Anderson
“With Gmail and Yahoo rolling email authentication protocols from February 2024 for mass email senders, 2024 is lining up to be a successful year for MSPs and resellers invested in DMARC [domain-based message authentication, reporting, and conformance] technology. Not only does DMARC represent a low-touch path to pure revenue, but there is a distinct opportunity for MSPs to sell the technology to both an existing customer base, as well as new customers using regulation as a lead generation tool. Resellers can help by first assisting those requiring email authentication, followed by the opportunity to sell other services from their stack.“
Eduardo Rosini
Eduardo Rosini, executive vice president of partners and alliances, Sage
“Innovation will be the name of the game, reshaping industries and the partner ecosystem at a fast pace. AI and automated services will open the door for partners to drive greater customer-centricity and data-driven decisions, leading to substantial growth opportunities. From increased productivity and smoother operations to an improved ability to provide excellent customer service, partners embracing the change will be best set to capitalize on the dynamic business landscape.”
Matthew Grantham
Matthew Grantham, head of worldwide partners, Nasuni
“Traditional value-added resellers (VARs) could experience challenges over time with today’s enterprises increasingly embracing the cloud and SaaS strategies that offer flexible subscription models and superior ROI. Companies, meanwhile, aim to mobilize data intelligence and explore GenAI’s possibilities by establishing more insightful and deeper collaborations with innovative vendors and their channel partners. … [VARs’] reluctance to adapt portfolio and revenue strategies to the fast-changing economics of the cloud era could constrain their long-term business development options. … Exploring a consultative approach for maximizing customer value will offer huge potential for traditional VARs to deliver long-term and future-proofed options with the cloud.”
Image: iStock
