GTIA CEO: ‘AI is the biggest accelerator to the relevance of the IT service provider’

CRN caught up with Dan Wensley at the recent UK&I Membership Forum in Manchester to find out his thoughts on the impact of AI on partner strategies, and what he sees as the challenges ahead for the future of the association

Q: You have been in the CEO role for a year now. Tell us about how you have found it?

Dan: It has been just over a year and it is going great! I've been a member of this organisation for over 25 years, 30 years in the vendor community, served on the board of CompTIA about 15 years ago, and so to be able to take on this role and be able to give back at this scale and this level inside the new GTIA over the last year has been very compelling, very exciting, and very inspirational.

Because we are at such an interesting time in the channel, and to say that -30 years in - now is where the real shift is happening, is pretty telling.

I think there's no better or more important time for the community to come together. It’s an exciting time for the industry, exciting time for the association, and an exciting time for our members.

Q: The number of new GTIA members seems to be growing fast, why is that?

Dan: It really is. And it's because of the new GTIA. There was never a mandate within CompTIA to grow for growth itself. It was a strong, healthy, vibrant community. Those who knew about it knew about it and participated, and I think benefited. But one of the mandates that the board had for the new GTIA, - which I was completely supportive of – and part of the opportunity of this role was that we needed to do more for more; we need to deliver more value to current members, and we need to deliver more value to more members.

Growth has been a constant and one of the foundational items that we want through the new GTIA, and that's made it really exciting. We've got the funding to be able to do it, we've got the endowment to be able to do it, and we have the passion to do it, so now we're executing.

Q: What can we expect to see more of from GTIA in the coming months and years?

Dan: Lots! The expansion of everything that we're doing well and discontinuing those things that haven't been adopted. We do a lot of things that don't get utilised, so we've got three primary objectives when we talk about the growth strategy.

First is utilisation of existing assets - building the assets and the resources that the channel and community really need - and more importantly, utilise those, whether it's our State of the Market [research], our economic tracker or SMB technology adoption; making sure that those assets and information are getting out and being utilised.

The second is to add more value to the member communities on both the vendor side and the IT service provider side, and to balance that. The vendors have always been incredible advocates in the industry, but I think we can do more for the MSPs and grow.

Thirdly to provide more membership opportunities to more IT service providers, because their voice is so needed inside this community on a larger scale, with all the change going on, and I frankly think they could all benefit from hearing about it as well and being a participant. You could skip a couple of managed services conferences or conversations five or six years ago, now you can’t. You can’t not be in the room with the pace of AI change. Our opportunity is to host those rooms, open those rooms, and make sure those who can't participate or want to participate have the opportunity to do so.

Q: What are the key opportunities and also the challenges facing the channel right now?

Dan: I think we're going through and have gone through seismic change before many, many times, in many, many iterations, from the reseller transformation to the value-added reseller, to the solution provider, to the managed service provider, to the cloud adoption, the advent of cybersecurity, and the importance of that. All of those had some pace to them, but all of them are put to shame with the pace of change brought on by AI.

I really think the opportunity for us to come together as an industry, and how are we going to adopt it's going to change everything, much like managed services did, how we talk to our customers, what value we're delivering too.

How do we deliver those services to those customers, how do we monetise those services to customers, and how the vendor community is adopting AI to better their solution software platforms that are used by the MSP. There's a real seismic shift, but it's the speed of that shift, which I think is the difference in this round.

Q: Do you think the channel really gets AI now?

Dan: I do. Our research is showing as much as 98 percent of the IT service providers have “adopted, entered, played with or implemented” AI in some way. The real strategy in the next frontier will be monetisation, and even then, there's much to do in around the maturity internally, how are they using it. Is it for marketing, sales, operational automation? Those are all great things.

But now the next evolution is how to turn that into a new service that you're delivering to your customers.

How are you helping them deploy AI? How are you being the subject matter expert to take AI to the customers?

AI is at a convergence point where it's inbound as much from the SMB market saying they are looking at AI, they are doing it and if their trusted advisor on the IT side isn’t at least keeping pace with that knowledge then they will be left behind.

Q: What are the threats facing the channel right and how can it overcome them?

Dan: The demise of the channel has been written about many, many times, and it comes with every change in the industry. It came in the solution provider change, it came in the managed services evolution, it came in cyber, it certainly came in cloud. But in fact, the opposite has happened.

This industry has thrived, the growth trajectories have improved, the margins have improved, the value to customers have improved, and all of our lead indicators in our research and our conversations is AI is perhaps again the greatest opportunity because of the additional complexity that it brings to the table.

It doesn't just run your business for you, meaning you can walk away and sit on a beach, it's adding incredible complexity operationally, cybersecurity, human resources.

It's impacting every piece of the business, so complexity is where margin always been, complexity has always been the value that the channel delivers to the market, so arguably AI is the biggest accelerator to the relevance of the IT service provider, as long as, with the caveat, they keep pace and do maintain that trust advisor status by being knowledgeable.

Q: GTIA is very big on charitable donations. How important is it to support DEI in the industry and help get younger people into the workforce?

Dan: It is not only the young, but it is folks who are coming into the industry for the first time. AI has brought a whole new set of individuals who have found technology interesting. So, we're making a lot of investments, both internally and operationally supporting the now generation who are in the industry; and on the charity side - what we're able to do with the foundation again, all driven by members.

Members decide where that money is going to go. They’re in the markets, they're seeing the challenges, whether it be youth, whether it be technology discrimination, whether it be lack of technology in some areas.

So, they bring forward the applications on where we can put the money. This year we are giving $5m, up from $2m last year. We plan to grow that. I think we've already seen a trend that much of the monies and recommendations by our membership has been around youth development, underprivileged areas, where we can buy assets that they can utilise, where we can train them, and frankly, where we can excite them about being in technology. It's gone from coding to ‘there's so much more now around AI’. The thinkers are needed in our industry, and we're excited to cultivate that.

Q: What can vendors do more of to help the channel?

Dan: I've been a vendor for 30 years, I think all of those in the vendor community understand the importance of technology innovation - it's what they do at their core. But they need to understand that they have an obligation to capitalise on that, to educate the industry and educate the MSPs on what that new innovation does, and how it will impact both the MSP and their customers.

I have great respect for the vendor community, and what they do, and how they drive education. We at GTIA are an amplifier for that and bring the ability to come together as an industry and talk about innovation from the vendor community, how it's impacting the MSP community and how it's ultimately impacting the end customer.

Vendors will take care of themselves, but the GTIA wants to support them, and be a facilitator to get their voices out there and help them work collaboratively.