‘Hybrid enterprise environments will prove to be a goldmine, but only for MSPs’ - Westcon-Comstor

The distributor looks to the future and shares its picks for channel growth drivers

Westcon-Comstor believes MSPs are emerging as hybrid's real winners as it lists what will define the distie’s focus in the coming months.

Founded on 24 June 1985, Westcon now employs around 3,700 people globally.

As part of the launch of its Future Ready initiative for partners, the £1.45bn revenue firm has published six channel trends it thinks will soon define the sector.

“Our Future Ready initiative is the perfect way to spotlight our heritage along with our forward-facing priorities and our dedication to enabling sustainable, long-term success across the channel,” said CEO David Grant (pictured).

Top of its list are managed service providers, which Westcon anticipates will be the few to reap the rewards of hybrid enterprise environments.

MSPs won’t be the only ones to succeed in this space, according to Westcon’s predictions, as will other partners who succeed in building and selling services that allow them to own the ‘glue’ layer spanning automation, security, governance and data flow between platforms.

In its FY25 results, cybersecurity climbed 19.3 per cent, accounting for more than half (51 per cent) of the distie’s gross sales.

The continued importance of security is highlighted among the trends, particularly its transition from an IT concern to a business function.

Cybersecurity has outgrown the office of the CISO and is now part of the CFO’s risk model, the COO’s continuity plan and the CEO’s brand reputation calculus.

The most effective channel partners won’t just sell security tools, Westcon says, they’ll help align security with enterprise priorities, from compliance and business resilience to risk management and M&A readiness.

AI is redefining work, and the new technology’s impact on channel firms could be immense. And Westcon states AI-driven data orchestration is redefining the role of the channel.

As AI becomes the brain behind data movement, the channel is evolving and partners are transitioning from infrastructure enablers to intelligence enablers. The smart money is now focused on building adaptive data fabrics that learn, respond and optimise in real time. The partners who successfully ride the AI wave will be those who master the intersection of AI models, data governance and multi-environment orchestration to deliver not just efficiency, but foresight.

Meanwhile, it adds AI Is forcing a network rethink, and the channel holds the blueprint.

As enterprises embrace AI workloads, real-time data and distributed compute, static networks are no longer fit for purpose.

The opportunity for the channel lies in helping customers adopt intent-based networking, zero-trust architectures and network observability at scale. This is the beginning of a new arms race, and the partners who triumph will be those who can design networks that think, heal and secure themselves.

In 2023 Westcon put its stamp on a rising trend with the launch of its multi-vendor marketplace, PartnerCentral.

It hails the cloud channel as one of its growth drivers.

Success in the cloud era requires new motions, new models and new skills. Cloud marketplaces, partner-to-partner (P2P) selling, usage-based billing and ecosystem co-selling are transforming how the channel works.

Partners must now embed themselves into hyperscaler programmes, drive consumption growth and deliver value-added services. The key to success for partners in this new world is to view hyperscalers as platforms, not suppliers or rivals.

To round off its predictions, Westcon brings the SMB digital wave as the channel’s next global growth engine to the fore.

With rising cybersecurity risks, cloud-native apps, AI tools and remote work becoming baseline requirements, millions of previously underserved SMBs are entering a new phase of digital urgency.

Channel partners who deliver repeatable, scalable and automated solutions – backed by vendor support and distributor orchestration – will unlock a vast, margin-rich opportunity.