Technology leaders are open to working with new expert advisors

By Martin Vilaboy

Heading into 2025 and having survived 2024, it’s both a great time and a tough time to be an IT executive or CIO type. On the one hand, nearly 70 percent of enterprise technology leaders recently surveyed by IDC agree that the pace of current technology innovation makes this the most exciting time to be a technology leader. With rise of what IDC calls the “digital business era,” technology leaders have never been more important to the day-to-day strategies, health and growth of the overall business. It’s one of the reasons why new specialized technology leader roles (CISO, chief digital officer, chief AI officer) are increasingly common.

On the other hand, technology leaders have never been more important to the day-to-day strategies, health and growth of the overall business. “Technology leaders are expected to contribute to business growth, manage risk by strengthening digital resilience, and modernize IT to achieve better business outcomes,” said IDC researchers. Along with increased importance, of course, comes increased pressure.

At the same time, IT departments face new levels of chaos and complexity within their domains – rapid rates of technology innovation; sprawling workforces and shadow IT; expanding attack surfaces; shifts to cloud, edge and AI; talent shortages, just to name a few. So perhaps it’s not surprising that IT leaders identify an increased appetite for technology advisory services to help them navigate today’s critical buying decisions amidst this ever-growing landscape of new technologies and increased procurement complexities, suggest recent findings from Telarus. According to the technology solutions distributor’s 2024/’25 “Tech Trends Report,” nearly all mid-market respondents said they were interested in meeting a new technology advisor – a whopping 92 percent. And while enterprises indicated less buying in the channel than mid-market companies, only 8 percent of enterprise buyers said they are not likely to use an advisor at all, compared to 18 percent in 2023.

“This trend will likely continue as the digital landscape grows more complex,” argued Telarus executives.

IDC, for its part, found that in order to help bridge skills gaps, about half of enterprise technology leaders expect to increase their use of external partners around networking (49 percent), cybersecurity (46 percent) and cloud (40 percent). More than a third said the same about data/AI/automation.

In other words, this is also a great time to be a technology advisor. That’s particularly true when considering new projections from Canalys, which estimate that IT spending across software, hardware and services, supercharged by AI, will accelerate during the next three years. Of course, that doesn’t mean the status quo will be enough to seize the opportunities. Rather, many technology advisors will need to leave their comfort zones – in terms of both services offered and value created – as IT buyers place more emphasis on “expert” and “advisor” and less on “trusted” and “partner.”

Cost Plus

Cost savings, for instance, has returned as a top priority, but there is a lot more going on here than “show me your bill, and we’ll see where you can save a few bucks.”  According to the Telarus report, cost management was the third most selected response when respondents were asked to name their top IT buying drivers, cited by 29 percent of respondents compared to only 6 percent in the previous year’s survey. Some of this shift can be attributed to current economic conditions. But Constellation Research CEO R “Ray” Wang, which was one of the firms commissioned to execute the Telarus survey, also is seeing investment in general-purpose infrastructure and hardware being shifted to projects such as AI, where further efficiencies can be discovered.

“So, what you’re seeing is cost-savings in one area to fund innovation in another,” said Wang. “Helping your customers find new ways to conduct their business more cost-effectively while keeping pace with change will render you a hero.”

Indeed, one of three IT buyers ranked cost-cutting as a top consideration for new technology investments

 IDC researchers, meanwhile, consider “cost containment and efficiencies” as one of three pillars of business growth heading into 2025. When enterprise technology leaders were asked how their organization was going to deliver global growth in the coming year, cost containment and efficiencies, cited by 44 percent of respondents, was second only to increased automation (49 percent) and just ahead of increased innovation (39 percent).

“Cost-cutting to fund innovation allows you to explore legacy system issues with your customers

and discuss improvements that could allow investments in high-priority technologies like AI and cybersecurity,” explain executives at Telarus. “Technology bundling is a great place to start the conversation. Bundling – combining multiple software applications or services into a single package – is an asymmetrical advantage for any sized business because it can help them run their organization at a tenth of the cost.”

Experts Required

As businesses look to fund innovation and reach higher levels of “digital maturity,” they will be looking for partners that can exhibit specialized category expertise to fill the skills gaps within their organizations, suggest the findings from Telarus and IDC. When asked to consider what would most likely lead them to rely on the guidance of a technology advisor or meet with a potential new channel partner, unique expertise and the challenge of making decisions in categories with which they have less expertise repeatedly topped factors such as existing relationship and personal recommendations.

Conversely, when IDC asked enterprise technology leaders to choose their most serious challenges to executing digital initiatives in their organizations, four in 10 respondents said external partners they relied upon do not have the right capabilities. This was the second most common response, behind only the complexity of integrating with legacy infrastructure, named by 41 percent. Similarly, a lack of regional expertise to effectively roll out global technology initiatives that comply with local requirements came in third at 35 percent of respondents.

Much the same happened when IDC asked respondents to consider obstacles to implementing AI initiatives within their organizations.

“AI technology is powerful but carries risk and requires careful oversight,” said the research firm. “Companies need partners that can help them navigate this uncharted territory; however, existing partners’ lack of capabilities is the second obstacle identified by organizations.”

The importance of a technology advisor establishing itself as an invaluable asset in guiding organization-wide AI strategies should not be underappreciated. According to the Telarus findings, more than half (53 percent) of respondent indicated that AI is a key driver of tech buying decisions — compared to just 13 percent who said the same in 2023 – while 87 percent of surveyed IT buyers indicated that AI is the number area they would welcome a new advisor for help. Yet only one-third of tech advisors surveyed said they are using AI to attract prospects, and only one-quarter are selling AI-powered solutions.

A similar scenario surrounds cybersecurity. During the past several years, few things, if any, have been on the mind of technology decision makers collectively more than cybersecurity threats to their networks, devices and data. Perhaps the only reason cybersecurity ranked second behind AI as an investment driver in Telarus’ recent survey is because AI is now being widely leveraged to combat cyberattacks. Yet there is a sentiment within the network and communications services channel that its technology advisors have not sufficiently seized upon this opportunity, likely due to the perceived barriers to entry into this crucial-yet-complex space. This is despite the fact that 46 percent of enterprise technology leaders surveyed by IDC said they expected to increase their use of external partners to help bridge cybersecurity skills gaps.

More generally, partner revenue data from Telarus seems to suggest technology advisors could be missing the proverbial boat when it comes to capitalizing on the current challenges and demands being articulated by IT leaders. When comparing technology advisors year-over-year revenue share and top revenue drivers, one could argue that the changes are not commensurate with the shifts taking place across business networks.

For 2024, for instance, the largest shares of technology advisors’ annual revenues are traditional connectivity (36 percent) and UCaaS (32 percent). These are virtually unchanged from 2023, with UCaaS even ticking up one point. At a time when organizations are undergoing digital transformations and seeking to advance their digital maturity, areas such as advanced networking/connectivity, cybersecurity, cloud and mobility have experienced little or no gains in channel partner revenue share from 2023 to 2024.

To be fair, technology advisors surveyed by Telarus did express intent to step up their games, with increasing numbers stating plans to add cybersecurity, mobility, next-gen connectivity and cloud solutions to their portfolios. And helping customers manage their way into and through the “digital business era” is far from a short-lived opportunity.

“Although the pandemic has been a catalyst of digital acceleration,” said IDC analysts, “only 22 percent of global organizations have achieved full digital maturity – these organizations have a long-term digital business strategy in place and an orchestrated, enterprise-wide digital-first trajectory.”

Technology advisors with the expertise to help businesses navigate a growing landscape of technologies and simplify procurement complexities are sure to be a part of this journey.

Sidebar:

AI Inside the Enterprise

More than half of the IT decision makers surveyed by Telarus said AI is a key driver of tech buying decisions, compared to just 13% who said the same in 2023. What’s more, 87% indicated that AI is the number one area in which they would welcome a new advisor for help. The Telarus survey offered some insight into how businesses are deploying AI within their organizations and where a conversation about AI might go.

In terms of where respondents currently stand with their AI efforts, 41% have initiated AI pilots, while an additional 29% have a “well informed plan” on how AI will be regulated and implemented. The remainder of respondents are either in the learning phase or enabling experimentation, with only 1% of respondents having disallowed AI use.

Customer experience is a solid number one in terms of the area of business where AI is being used, followed by cybersecurity and cloud. The top priorities for AI within CX include virtual agents (58%), data analytics (52%), real-time agent assist (46%), and marketing and messaging (39%).

In general, significant percentages of adopters are using AI across all business functions, from customer support to marketing to operations to sales. Top desired outcomes include productivity (79%), improved CX (74%), automation (59%), improved employee experience (55%), cost reduction (51%) and innovation (43%).

Turning to possible barriers to AI adoption, the top concerns respondents are looking to manage include data security/privacy (63%), compliance/regulatory (44%), hallucinations (43%), bias in outputs (41%), talent availability (40%) and cost (37%).