As 2024 comes to an end, a variety of commentators from across the channel give their verdict on the year and how it was for them and the wider sector.
Mark Appleton, chief customer officer, ALSO Cloud UK
2024 has been a transformative year for ALSO and the wider channel. We’ve seen significant growth and adoption in response to the evolving market demands. Our focus on enhancing digital presence and customer engagement has been well received within the market.
The wider channel has also experienced substantial changes. The shift towards digital transformation has accelerated, with many companies investing heavily in cloud infrastructure and cybersecurity. This trend has been driven by the need for more robust and scalable solutions to support remote work and digital collaboration. Additionally, the channel has seen a surge in demand for managed services, as businesses seek to outsource their IT needs to specialised providers.
In addition, there is the increasing demand for cloud-based AI solutions, such as Microsoft Copilot. Customers are looking for scalable, flexible and secure cloud services to support their business operations. This shift has been driven by the need for remote work capabilities and the desire to reduce on-premises infrastructure costs.
Technological advances have had a significant impact within ALSO and the wider industry. Namely, the adoption of AI and machine learning technologies like Microsoft Copilot. These technologies have enabled us to automate processes, enhance the decision-making process, and deliver increasing value back to our customers.
We anticipate that many of the trends observed in 2024 will continue into 2025. The demand for cloud-based solutions is expected to grow as businesses increasingly recognise the benefits of scalability, flexibility and cost-efficiency. This trend will likely drive further investments in cloud infrastructure and services and continue to grow the demand for MSPs to service the market.
Cybersecurity will remain a top priority for businesses, given the evolving complexity of the threat landscape. We expect to see continued advancements in security technologies and practices, with a focus on proactive threat detection and response.
David Watts, senior vice president and managing director, UK and Ireland, TD SYNNEX
For TD SYNNEX UK&I, 2024 has been a year of steady and positive progress. We have a strong global strategy that we follow and live by – and that’s why you will see consistent investment from us in areas such as cloud, security and, more recently, AI.
AI has been the big trend in 2024 and the question here, for partners and their end customers, has been how they can use the technology to deliver measurable business benefits. That’s something we’ve been helping partners to address with our Destination AI programme, which brings together multiple services and resources and provides a tailored route to developing the partner’s understanding of AI solutions and taking them to market.
The challenges in 2024 have mostly been about the economic uncertainty and the impact that’s had on customer confidence. Our response has been to continue to provide stability and consistency in our approach and the support we provide for partners. There have also been areas of the market that have seen less demand than others and due to the breadth of our business, we’ve been able to manage that quite effectively.
Our hope is that we will see a continued increase in confidence and with it an uptick in investment by customers as they look to bring their IT products and services up to date and to continue their digital transformation.
For TD SYNNEX, the strategy and priorities are unchanged – we’ll continue to focus on meeting the needs of our SMB partners and to develop our toolsets and programmes. And we’ll continue to support partners in the areas where we see the most growth potential.
Mark Wilkinson, regional vice president – ACCO UK & Ireland and vice president Derwent, ACCO
2024 has been another challenging year for the business products sector, though ACCO has had a respectable year, given a challenging environment. We have found strength in our category diversity, allowing us to whether changing market dynamics. We have seen, more widely, further industry consolidation in the business products space, as the marketplace has adapted to demand vs. supply.
In terms of trends, we are starting to see more pressure to have genuinely sustainable product offerings and the relevant information and data to support customers in selling them. Having a sustainable offering is not just a nice to have but a clear demand from our partners and their customers and we have seen demand for sustainable products grow year on year.
In addition, we see the conflict between office, home and hybrid working continuing to play out between employees and business leaders. So, while there is a strong need for home office supplies, meaning good value, relevant pack sizes and good design for home, we are also seeing demand for larger pack sizes and corporate office solutions as companies revamp their office spaces to entice employee back to the office.
The biggest challenges in 2024 have included supply chain disruptions as geopolitical disruption continues, with issues like the Red Sea causing significant cost increases in inbound freight. We have had to adapt our supply chains to be resilient to these tensions and pressures. Freight, currency and raw materials continue to be volatile.
The economic outlook and wider business and consumer confidence continues to be a challenge. The recent budget has made planning for 2025 slightly more difficult and all companies with large numbers of blue collar workers will be wrestling with how to manage this challenge.
I anticipate the trends of 2024 will carry on in 2025 including a stronger focus on eco-friendly products, relevant data and reporting requirements and need to share this with key customers and other stakeholders. With remote and hybrid work there will be ongoing demand for home and workplace products to reflect the needs of a multisite workplace.
Chris Shaw, head of channel, AvePoint
2024 has been a significant year for AvePoint and the wider channel. AvePoint has continued to invest heavily in its channel business, which has resulted in 51% of our annual recurring revenue coming from the channel as of our last annual earnings. This growth reflects our commitment to empowering partners and delivering enterprise-grade cloud solutions to small and midsize businesses.
We’re seeing more consolidation of platforms too and the traditional split between MSSP and MSP has become less and less. Our roadmap and evolution are gearing up and we’ll be releasing more and more security and management tools into Elements. That platform is going to grow to become invaluable for MSPs looking to streamline vendor sprawl while still expanding product and service offerings.
One of the key trends we’ve observed is the increasing reliance on partners to help manage data security and sprawl, especially as organisations utilise more SaaS applications and threat actors get more sophisticated. Customers are looking for comprehensive solutions that go beyond data backup to include ransomware detection, governance through automated policies and information lifecycle management.
Technological advances have a significant impact and AvePoint is always evolving its solutions to meet the growing needs partners have like introducing new data resilience and governance updates.
The trends we’ve seen in 2024, such as the increasing reliance on partners for data security and the demand for comprehensive digital collaboration solutions, are likely to continue into 2025. AvePoint will continue to invest in its channel business and innovate to meet the evolving needs of our customers.
Greg Jones, senior vice president of MSP enablement, Kaseya
For Kaseya and our partner community, 2024 was a fantastic year. The market was buoyant, and we saw strong growth. Many of our partners exceeded their goals and achieved outstanding results. Yes, the political and economic factors made for a bumpy ride for businesses at times, but the channel continued to perform well. It’s worth noting that our success and that of our partners is closely linked – if they are winning, we are winning.
In times of economic uncertainty, IT is always the best industry to be in. Many SMBs look to adopt technology to gain a competitive advantage in the market, as it helps them automate more processes and operate more efficiently. Automation-as-a-Service was therefore a big growth driver, along with security and compliance services and solutions. As regulations continue to change and SMBs must meet increasingly complex compliance requirements, we expect Compliance-as-a-Service (CaaS) to be in great demand in the coming months.
In 2024, there were quite a few uncertainties affecting the market, including a change in government, the US elections as well as the geopolitical tensions. Across the industry, these caused some projects – especially larger ones – to slow down. But we also saw a lot of drive in the market, with mergers and acquisitions and new MSPs entering the market to make the most of the opportunities out there.
In terms of technology, everyone is talking about is AI. Given the buzz around it, some might have expected it to make a huge impact in 2024. However, many organisations are still in the early stages of adoption. There is so much more still to come.
I anticipate the trends of 2024 to carry on in 2025. Security and automation will continue to drive strong growth for MSPs. So will CaaS, as smaller organisations will be leaning on their MSP partners to help them navigate the regulatory landscape. For MSPs to make the most of these opportunities, the best strategy is to work closely with their vendor partners so they can offer and market the best solutions.
Rachel Rothwell, senior regional director, UK&I, Zyxel Networks
2024 has been a fantastic year in some ways and a frustrating one in others. For Zyxel Networks, it’s been great in terms of growth for our Nebula cloud management platform and the technologies that it supports – WiFi and security in particular. What’s been slightly frustrating is the ups and downs we’ve seen in buyer confidence – but that’s been down to factors beyond the control of the channel. In 2025, if we have more stability, I think we will see a lot more growth.
We have seen strong growth around the adoption of WiFi 7 and we will be making some big announcements in that area very soon. I’d also expect to see the continued impetus with our security products and multi-gig, and we anticipate further strong growth in managed services. Activation and use of Nebula has been phenomenal and that’s definitely going to keep rising. We’ve got exciting plans to encourage and incentivise our partners to grow their managed services business, which we will be announcing early next year.
I think there is an uncertainty going into 2025 for everyone, the market landscape is a complicated one now, but we expect it to be another year of growth and progression for us and our partners. We’ll be doing our utmost to make sure that it’s a good year by putting added momentum behind our managed services solution and by focusing on key verticals such as hospitality and education. Here too, we’ll be announcing plans to support partners in driving growth.
We’re going into 2025 feeling positive and ready to support our partners in taking their business and our own to the next phase of development and success.
Lance Williams, CTO, Distology
2024 has been a year of opportunity and challenge. We’ve seen the economy through uncertainty thanks to the political stage; we’ve seen the cybersecurity landscape through another year of novel attacks, with the most high profile coming through non-IT environments; and, once again, the channel has shown real resilience and agility in adapting to the challenges and making the most of the opportunities. We reflect the cybersecurity market and the channel – both have shown real appetite and ability to deliver innovation to customers.
2024 has been another year where end customers have shown rigour in their cybersecurity purchasing. They are not willing to take a punt, they want to know that their investment will return value, and they’re willing to wait to decide if they’re not satisfied. We have also seen an increase in OT cyber customer requests reaching IT channel partners.
We’ve seen more innovation in the cybersecurity market and a surge of innovative and emerging cyber tech vendors compared to the same period last year. This is a great sign that, despite the ongoing global economic uncertainty, the cyber community collectively stays focused on defending and responding to threat actors. Of course, AI is everywhere and being put to great use in cybersecurity tech.
I anticipate the trends of 2024 to carry on in 2025. The AI steam engine continues down the track and will move through innovation after innovation to bullet train speed and beyond throughout 2025. This will bring an increasing pressure on organisations to be better organised and clear with their data security strategy and identity security strategies will need to incorporate machine identity management alongside human identity management. Seeing the rise of agentic AI and the slowing of GenAI, buyers will likely slow their unbridled enthusiasm seen in 2024 and be more considered and intentional with their application of AI technologies for fear of overinvesting too early. AI innovation will continue and become more helpful (in defences) and increasingly challenging (in attack) in cybersecurity.
Mike Barron, managing director, SYNAXON UK
We’ve taken another big step forward in 2024 achieving high double-digit growth for the second year running. We expect to carry on in the same vein in 2025 and to accelerate our growth even more. We’ve got even closer to our partners in the past year, and I can only see our relationships becoming even stronger. Partners really value the personal service, account management, and the process automation and efficiency that we provide and which sets SYNAXON apart from other suppliers. They know that they can depend on us and that we will always be there for them.
I think that’s been driven by a growing need among partners for closer interaction and engagement. It’s a challenge for them to keep on top of technological developments while also meeting the everyday needs of customers – for service and support, and for new devices, software upgrades and protection from cyberattacks.
As more technologies become integral to partner businesses knowing that they have a channel partner like SYNAXON that they can depend upon is more important than ever – especially to SMB resellers who are still developing in areas such as cloud, cybersecurity and managed services and I think even more partners will have a need for that kind of relationship in 2025.
There is every reason to be positive about the year ahead. I’d expect to see a strong hardware sector, driven by delayed COVID refreshes, AI PCs, and Windows 11 upgrades. We are preparing to support our partners in taking full advantage of that opportunity.
Neil Langridge, marketing & alliances director, e92plus
2024 has seen growth in the expected themes of cybersecurity – ransomware, AI – plus some big shifts with new priorities. For e92plus, we’ve continued to see strong growth over and above the IT channel average, as more complex threats, and the increasing inclusion of cybersecurity as part of IT strategy and business continuity sees budgets remain strong. The opportunity for channel resellers and MSPs shows no sign of slowing, and we’re seeing that particularly with cloud, networking and Microsoft partners who are embracing the potential of the strong revenues and growth that can come with cybersecurity.
In terms of changes, there’s a strong move towards resilience rather than simple defence. Cyberattacks, while not always succeeding, are being seen by businesses large and small, and there is an acknowledgement that no organisation is immune. Security needs to be fully embedded with corporate strategy and business continuity plans and is another opportunity for partners to add value around consultancy rather than just product sales. A perfect example is cyber insurance – it’s been on the rise, but demands from insurers are increasing and guidance is needed to help ensure customers don’t have gaps in their security posture that could invalidate their cover. On a similar note, compliance demands are rising, especially with NIS2 and DORA impacting those business operating in the EU. which represent more potential to support customers through the process.
AI has also moved from noise to action – while it’s not yet ubiquitous, the roll out of Copilot as part of Microsoft 365 has seen mainstream deployment in businesses, and frequently ahead of organisations realising they need a data security policy and relevant controls in place. This is partly due to pressure – Shadow IT saw everyone accessing business apps on their smartphones while organisations lagged in embracing personal devices, and we’re seeing the same with employees finding their own AI apps if they don’t get what they need from their IT teams. So while strategic plans for AI are being built, it’s essential that cybersecurity is designed into the plans alongside the rush for automation and efficiency, to avoid embarrassing data leaks from their own staff.
Richard Eglon, CMO, Nebula Global Services
2024 has been a challenging yet rewarding year for Nebula. As we pivot our business to deliver more remote and onsite managed services to our customers, we have had to make significant investments in our people, systems and processes. Any change process always puts strain on a business. However, now we are starting to reap the rewards. This move has been in response to market dynamics where the end client is demanding ‘as-an-outcome’, which aligns well to our global, vendor agnostic approach to the provision of technology.
In terms of trends this year, as channel firms look to reduce their overheads we are seeing more requests for the outsource of back-office services such as remote service desk, technical triage and managed cloud capabilities.
As a channel services business supporting all aspects of the channel from vendors, disties through to MSPs and resellers, we have experienced a longer time to revenue with the end client taking longer to make decisions. As we move to a more 50/50 managed services/professional services split we also mitigate the risk on the business with longer annuity-based contracts.
Meanwhile, the exponential growth of AI has resulted in more demand for data centre-related project work such as cabling, rack & stack and decomm. The growth of IoT into the business world such as physical security with the likes of Verkada has been an exciting opportunity for Nebula.
I anticipate the trends of 2024 will carry on in 2025 as it feels like we are at the beginning of an exciting growth period across AI-related technology areas, whether that be cloud-based or the physical infrastructure to support it.