It’s no secret that managed services providers are among the most highly sought-after channel partners for vendors of all sorts of business IT and communications solutions. That’s particularly true among those providers looking for resellers that can go a bit deep into customers’ tech stacks and sell beyond the more transactional products. Certainly, MSPs in their traditional form have been part of technology indirect channels for at least two decades, even further if you trace them back to the days of the “application service provider” (ASP) model. But in order to keep pace with the complexities of today’s technology business landscape, the MSP model “is evolving rapidly,” said analysts at CompTIA, in the association’s 2022 report on trends within the managed services channel. The term MSP itself is increasingly less defined by one type of service provider, and with the acceleration of cloud and digitally delivered services, MSPs even are being advised to think and behave in ways that are more in line with the model of a traditional sales agency or cloud brokerage firm than an IT shop. Researchers at the Technology & Service Industry Association (TSIA), for example, report to seeing “a rapid separation of managed services providers into two classes, which we call 1.0 MSPs and 2.0 MSP.” By Martin Vilaboy CHANNEL MANAGEMENT THE MORPHING ‘MSP’ MODEL The recent burst in cloud-delivery changes what it means to resell managed services 30 CHANNELV ISION | SEPTEMBER - OCTOBER 2022
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