CV_Fall_21_2

For service providers to successfully continue to position themselves as critical to the digital transformations taking place throughout their customer bases, they must first under - go significant transformations of their own, argue analysts at 451 Research. A full 98 percent of respondents to a recent 451 survey, for example, said some level of IT transformation was required to support the needs of their businesses during the next three years. Just more than four in 10 respondents said they will need to undergo a complete IT transformation. Even so, less than one in three service providers surveyed were at the point of actively executing on a plan for that transformation. In two years, the areas of infrastructure expected to undergo the most significant archi - tectural and operational changes, according to respondents, are storage (named by 51 percent), IT systems software (48 percent) and networking resources (46 percent). The most significant driver of infrastructure transformation is the growing need for capacity, and a majority of respondents said they are likely to rely more on third-party infrastructure and hyperconverged infrastructure during the next two years to support this transformation. Service providers also express a desire to transform in ways that improve margins or lower cost, as well as improve security and scalability. All the while, service providers also are looking to develop new offerings and expand their portfolios with more managed and professional services, suggest 451’s findings, as they look to support customers at more places along their digital transformation journeys. Service providers report to seeing demonstrated customer demand on one hand and interesting opportunities identified by vendors on the other, but ultimately, they see new and unique offerings as key points of differentiation in an increasingly crowded and competitive landscape. After the obvious impact on average customer value, the uniqueness of an offering is the factor rated as most important to making the business case for a potential new service by the largest number of service providers in the survey. “This may be why the largest portion of respondents (41 percent) indicate developing services in-house is their preferred approach, far ahead of buying packaged products (26 percent),” said 451 analysts. While significant portions of service providers indicate they currently offer both managed services for cloud (69 percent) and professional services for cloud enablement (59 percent), “respondents also see significant opportunities in providing such services around specific customer IT initiatives, including datacenter consolidation and cloud migra - tion (55 percent), risk and compliance initiatives (52 percent), and adopting or improving security tools and practices (51 percent),” said the 451 survey. Service providers indicate that the largest barriers to developing new professional or managed services are developing or acquiring skills (60 percent), creating new service delivery models (59 percent), and acquiring new infrastructure (59 percent). The challeng - es cited as most likely to impact the delivery of news services, meanwhile, include scaling (45 percent), managing technology vendors (44 percent) and developing effective security practices (41 percent). Transforming to Enable Transformation LETTER Martin Vilaboy Editor-in-Chief martin@bekabusinessmedia.com Bruce Christian Senior Editor bruce@bekabusinessmedia.com Brady Hicks Contributing Editor brady@bekabusinessmedia.com Percy Zamora Art Director percy@bekabusinessmedia.com Rob Schubel Digital Manager rob@bekabusinessmedia.com Jen Vilaboy Ad Production Director jen@bekabusinessmedia.com Berge Kaprelian Group Publisher berge@bekabusinessmedia.com (480) 503-0770 Anthony Graffeo Publisher anthony@bekabusinessmedia.com (203) 304-8547 Nazal Parvin Associate Publisher nazal@bekabusinessmedia.com (415) 516-7053 Beka Business Media Berge Kaprelian President and CEO Corporate Headquarters 10115 E Bell Road, Suite 107 - #517 Scottsdale, Arizona 85260 Voice: 480.503.0770 Email: berge@bekabusinessmedia.com © 2021 Beka Business Media, All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in any form or medium without express written permission of Beka Business Media is prohibited. ChannelVision and the ChannelVision logo are trademarks of Beka Business Media 6 CHANNEL V ISION | Fall 2021