*Per Gustavo Leite
Data management and protection trends related to the cloud, cyber resilience and AI will play an important role in the channel in 2024. Taking into account our studies and information gathered from our partners, we have listed below the main predictions for next year:
- Data repatriation in the cloud will create a huge opportunity for channel partners.
The cloud isn't going anywhere – many of the promises that made it 57% of all current data being stored in the cloud are still true. However, organizations are realizing that for all its benefits, the cloud is not the cost-effective silver bullet for all types of applications and data. This is leading to widespread repatriation of data to the cloud: mature organizations that have made the journey to the cloud are bringing some data back on-premises, and cloud-native companies are supplementing their cloud infrastructure by migrating some data to new computing resources and local storage. . In fact, estimates suggest that even 80% of companies will repatriate at least some data next year. This will create a huge opportunity for a variety of channel partners in 2024. For example:
- Resellers: Cloud-native companies that bring data on-premises will need help acquiring the hardware infrastructure and management software to build their data centers.
- Global Systems Integrators: Both mature organizations and cloud-native companies will need help navigating the increasingly hybrid multi-cloud integrations and infrastructures that cloud data repatriation contributes to.
- Managed Service Providers: Many mature organizations have relocated data center staff as part of their cloud journeys, and many cloud native companies simply never had them. In either case, there is a talent and skills gap that managed service providers can help fill.
- The rise of vendor-driven security ecosystems will make it easier for global systems integrators to fight for cyber resilience against threats like ransomware.
The unprecedented rise of ransomware as a dominant cybercriminal activity has blurred the line between cybersecurity and data protection. To help organizations achieve cyber resilience, cybersecurity and data protection vendors are increasingly joining forces by establishing security ecosystems. The best of these ecosystems even validate integrations in the lab against real-world attacks to ensure combined solutions protect data, detect threats, and enable rapid recovery. With a sharp increase in these ecosystems during the second half of 2023, global systems integrators will be able to take full advantage in 2024 by focusing less on selling their own integration capabilities and more on selling comprehensive cyber resilience solutions that they know that will satisfy customer needs.
- AI-focused, generative data compliance regulations will force customers to look to the channel for help.
For all its potential use cases, generative AI also carries heavy risks, including data privacy concerns. Right now, most regulatory bodies are focused on how existing data privacy laws apply to generative AI, but as the technology continues to evolve, legislation specific to generative AI will certainly emerge. As legitimate business use cases for generative AI grow, organizations will need the channel's help in the coming year to implement compliance and data governance tools that address today's generative AI issues and also to move beyond Free generative AI for more robust commercial AI platforms that have data privacy protections in place by default. While many organizations face these new challenges with little in-house knowledge or experience, the channel must be prepared by 2024 to meet this need.
- Channel partners will be impacted by the “one in, one out” approach to enterprise security purchasing.
Estimates put the average set of enterprise security tools at 60-80 distinct solutions, with some companies as many as 140. While global systems integrators have done admirably in integrating many of these tools for customers, the reality is that organizations simply don't have the bandwidth to manage more security tools. By 2024, more than a few companies will reach maximum capacity, forcing a “one in, one out” mentality in their enterprise security toolkits or a consolidation of security solutions into more comprehensive products. As a result, it will be more difficult for channel partners to sell new point products – to do so, they will have to present even more compelling value propositions that consider that existing tools may not be as important and could be eliminated from the market. customer toolkits to make room for new products to meet new challenges. However, this also creates an opportunity for channel partners to sell sets of products that operate on platforms that share a common management interface. These not only solve new problems, but also address a myriad of existing challenges without increasing administrative burden.
- Ongoing Chief Information Security Officer vacancies will open doors for value-added resellers and managed service providers to help guide customers' cyber resilience strategies.
Many organizations have struggled to fill vacant chief information security officer positions in 2023, a trend that will likely continue into 2024. At the same time, however, data security is the main risk organizations face today – even overcoming economic uncertainty and competition – and the risk is increasing. Without help, this could lead to dire circumstances – 15% of IT executives and leaders think their organizations might not even survive until the end of 2024. Value-added resellers and managed services providers are uniquely positioned to bridge the gap, helping customers create comprehensive cyber resilience strategies in 2024 that will allow their clients to avoid the repercussions of not hiring CISOs in 2023.
Channel organizations that prepare for and capitalize on these trends will have greater success in 2024.
*Gustavo Leite is vice president for Latin America at Veritas Technologies
Notice: The opinion presented in this article is the responsibility of its author and not of ABES - Brazilian Association of Software Companies
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