What is the biggest opportunity facing the 50 MSPs, consultancies and VARs ranked in IT Channel Oxygen’s Fast-Growth 50 for the next 12 months?
We put this question to a selection of their leadership.
Here’s what they said…
Kerry Burn, CEO 848 Group
“848 A lot of businesses are feeling the pressure to jump on AI, but very few are actually ready to do so. We’re really focusing on helping clients with AI readiness so they can leverage its capabilities effectively, responsibly, and securely.
“This isn’t just looking at their data and infrastructure, but the internal skills available and ability to embrace change. There’s no point rushing into the AI world without a clear strategy and capabilities.
“We’re also doing a lot more with newer partners such as Arctic Wolf and BullWall as cyber security continues to be a priority for customers. 848 has always focused on delivering services and solutions that are ‘secure by design’ and now we’re expanding our security capabilities to help our clients in the complex threat landscape. We have a great team of cyber security specialists, and our new partnerships – alongside our strengths in the Microsoft stack – are enabling us to offer more when it comes to security operations.”
Edward Armitage, Founder and MD, Bedroq
“AI. We are helping our financial services customers get the most out of Copilot safely, while we use video analytics and AI to surface relevant content and intelligence to our Police and Energy customers.”
Rob May, Executive Chairman ramsac
“Firstly, helping organisations that want to harness AI properly and securely. Secondly, I predict there will be a lot of clean-up work in the channel as people rush to rollout AI without understanding the risks and the ramifications.
“My book Harnessing AI talks about the need to do this strategically but many won’t and that will be generating a lot of future sector expertise.”
Daniel Bumby, MD, Simoda
“As most IT organisations will say, AI is a big growth area for us in the next 12 months, however we are still having lots of public, private & hybrid infrastructure conversations,”
“Our solution stack covers seven key areas, (EUC, comms, cyber security, cloud, infrastructure, data intelligence, network services) each of which has a big part to play in the next 12 months of Simoda.”
Philip Mashinchi, Managing Partner, Cambridge Support
“Cyber security services. There are still many organisations that need assistance to understand the risks and how they can protect themselves. We are launching new services to expand our offering with a new team to address these needs.”
See Cambridge Support profile here
Jonathan Asquith, MD, Jungle IT
“Cyber security is huge – many SMEs just aren’t adequately prepared for a cyber incident.
“A top priority is ensuring we support businesses with the right infrastructure and technology to enhance their data governance, compliance and security. Optimising Microsoft Azure is an integral part of this modernisation, and advocating for a cloud-native endpoint management approach helps us deliver operational IT excellence to users.”
Mark Adams, CEO, Vambrace
“Apple’s decision to allow 3rd part app stores in Europe is big news, further industry regulation, increase in outsourced cybersecurity services in mid-market, huge skills shortages in the sector….. I could go on and on.”
Alex Fagioli, CEO, Intragen
“Having been a bit boutique, the identity services market is consolidating. We think there is an opportunity to further accelerate our growth through acquisition.
“We need to build out our ability to serve those customers who want to work with an identity specialist (rather than an IT generalist) whose resources are all EU based (rather than offshore).”
Simon Walker, MD, Cloud Bridge
“Advancing our dynamic FinOps solutions. Specifically, we’re focusing on orchestrated offerings like storage management and container management.
“Security as a Service. With the integration of AI in attack vectors, the demand for enhanced security solutions is expected to rise.
“Managed services is a growing area for us. More and more customers are looking to offload the complexities of AWS architecture so they can concentrate on developing their business apps. We’re here to take care of the technical nitty-gritty, allowing our clients to focus on what they do best: growing their businesses.
“We’re currently investing in and testing AWS’s portfolio of AI technologies. Our focus is on leveraging data analytics and machine learning models against SMBs’ own data, as we believe this is where the real value lies. While we’re not fully there yet, we’ve already developed several beta services using various AWS AI cloud technologies, and the interest they’re generating is promising.”
Nicola Saner, MD, Chorus IT
“We’ve built a partner model to help MSPs quickly deliver managed security (MDR & MXDR) services through our CSOC.
“Building an internal CSOC to deliver managed security is a huge challenge for MSPs – our partner model removes that challenge and risk. We’ve had some great partner success stories and expect that this will be our biggest growth area.”
Stuart Goldwater, Co-Founder and MD, Pragmatiq
“Forming strategic partnerships with complementary organisations. By collaborating, we can expand our market reach and deliver transformative technology solutions to a broader range of customers, making a real difference in how they operate.”
Paul Starr, CEO, SEP2
“On the business side, we have been on a journey away from a traditional Valued Added reseller to a modern consultative managed security services provider.
“This will continue to be a key focus for this year as we make the best of procurement routes such as marketplaces, and work towards a more consumption-based model across our portfolio.”
