Emerging Technologies Spurred by the Pandemic and What That Means for the Future
What emerging trends and technologies did customers start engaging with during the pandemic, and where are things now?
December 17, 2021
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“One of the key things that the pandemic taught us is that we can work from anywhere, but it has to be done securely. That was initially pretty challenging for companies, right after every pivot to work from home. There were a lot of struggles with VPN and things like that.
“We have also implemented a net zero-trust service. So effectively, what is called SASE, or secure access service edge. And that’s been pretty attractive to customers — trying to help them work from home securely and solve all related issues.
“A couple of things that I like about the software-defined perimeter approach, which is what we adopted, is that it gives us the ability to have the level of control and monitoring that we need to do our jobs, as threat detection and incident response, wherever that device is, wherever the endpoint that they’re communicating with is. So it doesn’t need to travel back through a corporate network for us to have visibility into it to see if there’s risky traffic. That has been incredibly helpful for us.”
“One of the things that we’re noticing with our clients is that prior to COVID, we were still having conversations about moving to the cloud or not moving to the cloud — advantages and disadvantages. Those conversations are over.
“At this point, it’s not about moving to the cloud, it’s “what’s the best way to be on the cloud?” So there’s definitely a shift in the industry and the basic premise of the MSP originally, which was securing workstations, making sure patches were installed, all those basics have been highly commoditized.
“That’s not really much of a selling point, though. There’s much more of a consultative aspect to what we’re doing and the conversations that we’re having with our clients are centered around what their business does, where they’re going, and how we can apply technology to get there. Specifically as it relates to all these devices.
“It used to be, “How do we secure this? How do we secure that?” Right now, everything is shifting to borderless networks. From the ground up, we’re designing the networks to allow for access from anyone, anywhere, any device, as opposed to the old model, which was essentially playing offense. This is just a completely different way of thinking about things. Like everything else, the trend is now to move everything into opex as opposed to capex. You’re spending a lot of money every month now, which does take some getting used to for a lot of the clients, but it’s definitely the trend that we’re seeing.”
“Cloud acceleration and adaptation, which was still up in the air, got pushed forward, given what we had to do to work from home. And with regard to everything switching from opex to opposed to capex — I think it goes beyond the MSPs or just companies in general that are looking at that.
“Regardless of how you serve, or what you serve, it’s something that I think is going to be an area that we can take advantage of and help our clients with as they transition to that, too. So it’s exciting. The pandemic changed a lot of things [in business], the majority for the good.”
“Pandemic aside, speaking to the point, “shouldn’t companies be further along by now?” in terms of adopting certain technologies, I think that’s it’s really less about the size of the company, but more how forward-leaning are these guys with technology and nailing down a strategy for whatever business.
“So with the point about really understanding how our customers transact, how to generate revenue and what kind of data they have, we have found that to be extremely valuable. It is vital to have a really good understanding of that, because then we can align security services to how they actually operate, maybe help them migrate to the cloud, maybe help them move from one SaaS provider to another or whatever it ultimately winds up being, in a way that we can still have the visibility and control that’s required.”
“I think that’s a really important point that it’s not a “one size fits all” approach. Its not a provider in a box. It’s based on the industry. On the MSP side of it, I have a couple of different businesses that roll up into what I do — mainly financial institutions, banks and regulated industries. They are, understandably, very cautious and risk averse. That’s what they do for a living — manage risk. But, they don’t really manage it so much as try to avoid it.
“So cloud was not something that they were really adopting quickly. The dilemma used to be public cloud vs private, but all of that has changed. And it’s not just small organizations that are struggling with it — it’s all organizations. Whatever industry you’re serving, you have to meet them where they’re ready.”
“Managed mobility has come back very high. Collaboration in the sense of employee productivity is really hot. It takes a certain level of understanding because everybody’s working from these mixed modality methods so they have to bear out what that really looks like.
“The other trend that I’ve been watching and talking to clients about is, for the first time in business, folks are hiring outside of their headquarters. Clients are now saying, ‘Well, I guess I can hire somebody from somewhere besides 10 miles around me with IT expertise.’ I believe that will change the MSP model a little bit as well, because it will open up new opportunities for the MSP hiring market.
“Because of this technology shift and remote work capabilities, there’s an opportunity for MSP providers to go after folks that are not necessarily right there in their region.”
“Managed mobility has come back very high. Collaboration in the sense of employee productivity is really hot. It takes a certain level of understanding because everybody’s working from these mixed modality methods so they have to bear out what that really looks like.
“The other trend that I’ve been watching and talking to clients about is, for the first time in business, folks are hiring outside of their headquarters. Clients are now saying, ‘Well, I guess I can hire somebody from somewhere besides 10 miles around me with IT expertise.’ I believe that will change the MSP model a little bit as well, because it will open up new opportunities for the MSP hiring market.
“Because of this technology shift and remote work capabilities, there’s an opportunity for MSP providers to go after folks that are not necessarily right there in their region.”
The pandemic fundamentally and forever changed the way we work, and accelerated the digital transformation.
With the ongoing pandemic and continued economic uncertainty, MSPs are homing in on their strategies and focusing on their resources. The MSP trends expected to shape the industry really highlight how interwoven maturing technologies and emerging developments have become.
In the next few years, shaped by the pandemic and the urgent needs it revealed/unleashed, there will be a number of hot emerging technologies that will be in high demand. These have already created new opportunities for MSPs to incorporate into their product portfolios and service offerings. And it will most definitely continue to do so.
Staying competitive in this new business and economic environment requires new strategies and practices for partners.
MSPs are making much-needed investments in security, are adopting new hybrid on-premises and cloud approaches. They are embracing new and emerging technologies overall. The road to digital transformation isn’t an easy one, and can take many forms. As a result, MSPs have a golden opportunity to help customers navigate this new landscape.
At our recent Channel Partners Conference & Expo, we conducted roundtables with channel experts addressing hot topics in areas such as cybersecurity, cloud and managed services.
New technologies and their impact was among hot topics addressed during our roundtable with MSP industry experts.
Panelists included:
Paul Caiazzo, CISO, SVP Corporate Development, Avertium
Joseph Rabinowitz, Co-Founder and CTO, Homefield IT
Kurt Guenther, President, Business Solutions Group, Computer Services, Inc. (CSI)
Stephen Moss, SVP and GM, Connected Workforce, Insight
Scroll through our slideshow above for highlights from this roundtable.
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