Technology Reseller v35

technologyreseller.co.uk 25 PREDICTIONS 2021 A changing landscape – Chris Martin , EMEA Channel Leader, A10 Networks The next 12 months will see a period of consolidation and growth for the channel. Every vendor should be looking at how they have adapted their working practices, internally and with partners, especially during the peak months of the COVID-19 pandemic. Applying such learnings should make for a far less turbulent year in 2021. In fact, most organisations have accelerated their digital transformation plans which has hopefully led to opportunity and growth for the channel. Some partners may already have seen revenue declines in traditional, mainstream technology, and they should focus on developing new technologies and solutions for their customers that are suitable for a completely different way of working. Key growth areas will be cloud migration, addressing network security concerns, IoT proliferation and a lack of agility and visibility throughout the IT infrastructure. The adoption of 5G will see the scope of partnerships change as it brings innovation and access to new revenue streams. There will also be significant growth opportunities in vertical sectors, causing vendors to focus on partners that have specialist skills in particular areas. Threats for the channel in 2021 Working practices have been irreversibly changed by the COVID-19 pandemic, with upwards of two-thirds of UK adults set to work remotely in the future. This has introduced an extended surface area for cyberattacks. The enterprise perimeter has not only expanded but become much more distributed as many employees no longer work inside the traditional network perimeter. Organisations need to re- assess how they defend their networks, users and data. Likewise, service providers will experience increased demand to provide higher security and availability for their subscribers. Unfortunately, there is not a one-size- fits-all approach, which is why strong partner relationships are critical. Some organisations, especially large ones, will prioritise scalability, flexibility and an efficient multi-cloud transformation; others will simply need advice on how they can make a smoother and more secure transition to a remote workforce. Will 2021 be a better year for the UK IT channel? Naresh Chouhan , EMEA Marketing Director, Cloudian 2020 was a challenging year for the channel. Revenues were down nearly across the board, with Covid-19 affecting almost every player, from vendors and distributors to resellers and MSPs. But is there light at the end of the tunnel, and will 2021 be any brighter? The challenges of the pandemic have demonstrated the need for resilient, scalable IT infrastructures, in which continuity can be ensured and total costs easily kept under control, so we can expect many sectors and technologies to show renewed strength next year. However, IT requirements have been fundamentally and potentially permanently changed by the pandemic, and end-users will demonstrate this in 2021 through their buying choices. These will likely take the form of investment in solutions that provide better backup support for the SaaS tools businesses now increasingly rely upon (notably Microsoft 365) and better and more reliable defences against the increased threat of ransomware. Every participant in the channel needs to be able to cater to these demands or run the risk of being left behind. What will drive growth in 2021? In the 12 months from September 2019 to August 2020, the UK National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) handled more than three times as many ransomware incidents as in the previous year, with local government, healthcare and education all hit hard. Expensive and high profile incidents, such as the attack on Redcar Council, which was reported to have cost £10.14 million to put right; the aggressive targeting of backups; and an increase in the number of phishing attacks have raised doubts about the effectiveness of traditional methods of ransomware prevention and highlighted the difficulty of eradicating human error. Considering these risks, we expect more end users to invest in solutions like immutable data backup that prevents hackers from tampering with ‘locked’ data, driving growth for the VARS and MSPs that can provide them. We also see significant growth potential in Disaster Recovery as a Service, Storage as a Service and Office 365 backup services. What risks lie ahead? Though opportunities abound for the channel, it would be foolish to ignore the challenges ahead for partners that cannot adapt. We expect demand for traditional block storage to continue to decline as end user needs change. For example, the need to derive maximum value from data through the insights provided by analytics tools has made advanced metadata tagging essential – a capability provided by object storage but not traditional block storage. In addition, we anticipate that MSPs and VARs that are not sufficiently prepared for installing physical systems while complying with social distancing regulations could struggle in 2021. As government regulations can change overnight, organisations are advised to appoint a special committee to make quick and informed decisions about how on the ground IT teams can adhere to social distancing protocols. Just because 2020 was difficult, does not mean 2021 will follow suit. Many buyers in the finance, insurance and legal sectors recognise the need for increased investment to tackle the threat posed by ransomware and were just waiting for the pandemic to stabilise before taking action. This caused a degree of lag that the channel should benefit from as growth returns in 2021 – as long as they reflect the new requirements of the market and supply the products that customers want. Naresh Chouhan Chris Martin predictions continued...