While it may seem counterintuitive to hitch your hopes for business growth to the wagon of what can only be described as a “competitor,” that is precisely what is taking place in the channel at an accelerating rate. Of course, the concept of “ecosystem partnerships” isn’t exactly novel. For the past few years within the IT and communications channels, we’ve heard about advisors, agents and MSPs with varying expertise and offerings teaming up to fill gaps in portfolios or co-deliver adjacent services. This could be as simple as a referral deal, whereby one consultant is paid a referral fee for recommending another channel firm, or it could include, say, a UCaaS specialist who brings in a trusted cybersecurity advisor to offer a customer a combined, more complete package.
What’s more unique to today is how market conditions are forcing channel partners to reconsider the necessity of these types of arrangements, and in turn, instances of ecosystem partnering appear to be skyrocketing. But in order for these partnerships to bear the intended fruit, the details of these deals need to be a bit different moving forward, experts warn.
According to channel partners surveyed for CompTIA’s 2025 IT Industry Outlook, a full 90 percent of channel firms expressed intent to participate in partnering with other channel firms. As many as six out of 10 channel respondents polled by CompTIA (which was recently renamed as the Global Technology Industry Association) described their partnering activity as a strategic and formalized part of their business operation. The top reason for entering an ecosystem partnership was to gain access to “more offerings for customers,” said respondents, followed by a need to fill skill gaps, amplify complementary business models and gain access to partners with vertical experience.
Ecosystem partnering also is seen as a way to blunt competition from online marketplaces, said CompTIA analysts, by enabling firms to expand their technical capabilities, geographic footprint, and, in some cases, their sales effectiveness.
And it’s not just IT and telecom channels where the trend toward ecosystem is “gaining steam.” According to a survey of leaders at 258 U.S. large organizations by audit, tax and advisory firm KPMG LLP, more than three-quarters of respondents said the number of their ecosystems partnerships has increased during the past three years, while 83 percent expressed plans to expand their partner ecosystem during the coming three years. Nearly half expressed interest in exploring not just traditional partnerships but also new technology affiliations, strategic alliances or other collaborative relationships.
What’s more, “A staggering 75 percent of respondents view ecosystem partnerships as a pivotal component for growth, fueling innovation, driving transformation and helping them adapt to industry changes by leveraging industry expertise and resources,” said KPMG analysts upon release of the results last December. Looking ahead, a full 94 percent of organizations surveyed by KPMG believe that their partner ecosystem will serve as an enabler for future growth, competitive advantage and business resilience, said the advisory firm.
For contestants both inside and outside of the channel, the market pressures encouraging the development of ecosystem partnerships are unsurprisingly similar. Both groups of respondents directly attribute the shift in need to the complexity of today’s IT assets, delivery models and technological advancements.
As CompTIA researchers explain, a relatively straightforward menu of hardware and software choices has “mushroomed into a massive curricula of data services, e-commerce, AI, software as a service (SaaS), cybersecurity, cloud computing and mobile devices.” In this wide and highly specialized world, channel firms can find the capacity to provide services up and down the technology stack overwhelming, if not impossible, leading to this “renewed interest” in partnering with other channel firms.
“Consider the level of skill and resources needed to declare expertise in even one or two of tech’s main disciplines, say cybersecurity or data science. It’s not a low bar,” continued CompTIA researchers. Factor in the acumen to deliver adjacent services and infrastructure that support just those two disciplines, the report continued, “and the bar moves ever higher. It’s understandable that many channel firms have skill or resource gaps that affect what they can offer clients.”
Similar pressures are being felt by the large organizations surveyed by KPMG. When asked to list the partner attributes that were most important when making ecosystem partnerships, respondents cited “experience and expertise within their industry” as the number one priority. But when asked to cite the most important attributes in the coming one to three years, “technological compatibility” moved to priority number one. “Agility and receptiveness to digital transformation initiatives,” meanwhile, leaped past “shared vision and goals” to become the number three priority.
Incidentally, digital transformation was the top capability sought in ecosystem partnerships when business leaders were asked to consider objectives, with 54 percent of respondents looking to outsource those capabilities. R&D and culture, on the other hand, were the leading capabilities that respondents aim to build themselves, showed the KMPG data.
The complexity of generative AI, in particular, also has significantly impacted ecosystems strategy and planning for organizations surveyed by KPMG, said the advisory firm, prompting organizations to increasingly depend on partners for generative AI solutions in the future. The survey found that 48 percent of organizations feel that generative AI has influenced their ecosystem strategy and planning, while generative AI ranked as the number one technological aspect in which firms anticipate increasingly relying on partners, followed by cloud technology and SaaS solutions.
“Ecosystem partners play a crucial role in an organization’s Gen AI program by providing specialized tools and, technical expertise, sharing knowledge, fostering innovation and accelerating AI project deployment,” said KPMG.
For any coming wave of ecosystems partnership to provide their intended outcomes, changes first must be made to how they are approached and entered, CompTIA researchers warned. Up to this point, failure rates have been high, according to years of survey data on the matter, due in large part to the frequency of informal arrangements.
“No more handshake deals; channel firms need to iron out the conditions of a partnership in a legal contract that covers all aspects of the arrangement, from liability issues that can crop up to who owns the customer relationship,” said CompTIA’s most recent IT industry outlook.
KPMG findings likewise suggest a lack of formalized arrangements. Only about a third of respondents said they consistently measure the performance of their ecosystem, while about a quarter have made no effort to measure performance whatsoever. Arguably in turn, seven in 10 organizations admitted to struggling with aligning goals and expectations among partners, while about half reported challenges in managing change with their ecosystem of partners.
“The key to making these relationships work is formalizing them. It’s wise to cement the details of any partnership deal in a contract that addresses everything from expectations to liabilities,” concluded CompTIA analysts. And getting things right will be important to lots of end users, as 70 percent of channel organizations said they expect an increase in partnering activity in the next 12 months.
