Partners need to be ‘bolder and braver’: Trustmarque Ultima on the future of the channel

At Fusion Live 2026, CEO Simon Williams and COO Stuart Daley discussed with CRN what it will take for partners to thrive, how the industry is evolving, and where the market is seeing the most growth

Sitting down with CRN at Fusion Live 2026, Trustmarque Ultima’s leadership team reflected on the powerhouse merger in November 2025, and how the unified business has consolidated the combined strength, expertise, and capabilities of the individual businesses.

Trustmarque Ultima (TMU) is full steam ahead, continuing to weather the operational complexities of a merger, while successfully continuing to grow.

The merger

Almost a year on from the merger, Trustmarque Ultima unveiled its new brand identity, marrying the two brands under one cohesive character.

The refreshed brand marks the next phase of its integration journey, combining the heritage of Trustmarque and Ultima while continuing its focus on helping customers unlock greater value from technology investments.

Simon Williams, CEO, reflected on the new identity, “I think it's really important to respect that heritage with the two brands and two names, but we needed a single identity.

“So, this phase is the identity, and going to market with ‘TMU’.

“We've got the spinning top which we call the advantage point. We love it because it shows momentum, it shows energy, and we see ourselves as a force to help clients and driving that advantage for our clients.”

With experience dealing with mergers in previous organisations, Daley explained the challenges that can come from them.

“It's very easy to take your eye off the ball when it comes to the market, customers and partners, and you can become quite insular in your focus.

“One of the things we've done is made sure that we brought the leadership team together on day one. We brought the sales team together on day one.

“The organisational setup was very much we want to be one identity as a business into the market, common experience with customers, common experience with suppliers, and so on.

“That for us has been the focus: to make sure that we service customers, and we service partners in the right way, rather than being too internally focused.”

Impressively, the business has continued to grow as operations continue to be consolidated within the business.

“I think it's quite impressive that a company that's in its first year as a merged organisation has still grown double-digit, as opposed to businesses where they've become too internally focused and taken their eye off the ball and have either stayed static or flat,” said Stuart Daley, COO.

“Combined, we have over 3,000 customers, and actually this year we made inroads into selling more lines of business to them.

“Historically, 3,000 customers have maybe bought one or two things from us.

“What we've seen this year is that one or two things has become three or four. What we want to get to is to be able to offer the full portfolio to that wider customer base.”

Williams explained a positive change that customers now experience, “what's changed is that those clients now have access to a whole bunch of new capabilities that they didn't have access to before.”

While changes are happening, there’s one element that the combined business vowed to remain.

Daley explained, “I think in terms of what customers see us as being famous for is very much being that technology thought leader, but with the capability to actually sell them the technology to enable that to happen, or implement the technology in such a way that it delivers those business outcomes.”

Where the market is growing the fastest

As technology continues to evolve, AI is a key driver in the growth of the market.

However, AI’s impact isn’t only the uptake in AI adoption, but also growing the importance of cybersecurity solutions to keep organisations safe from growing attacks.

Daley discussed the growth of cyber for TMU, “If we take the last 12-18 months, cyber has been a great success.

“Our cyber business has really grown, and it’s been a mixture of specialist service capability and looking at what vendors we want to play with.”

And there is no doubt that AI, and specifically, AI adoption, has been a major trend.

He continued, “AI adoption has [also] been a big growth area, both in terms of kind of the technology side and the product side, but also on the services side.”

Although, customers are still unsure on the use cases that will provide them with the most value.

“I think every customer that we speak to is saying ‘even if I don't know why I need AI, I'm going to have to do AI because everyone else is doing it.’

“It's become a bit of an arms race.”

TMU is dedicated to helping customers experiment and successfully adopt AI, rather than remaining stuck within the experimentation phase.

Daley discussed, “We’re working with a number of clients on their AI adoption journeys, and it is very much at the experimentation stage, but also helping to share best practice, and do it in a way that is safe.”

Williams described how customers have been purchasing AI products, and unsure where to get started.

For TMU, AI delivery isn’t the key point at this moment, but education for successful adoption is.

“I think the biggest support we're giving at the moment is around adoption.

“The clients have bought the licenses, but they're not they're not using it, or they're not using it enough.

“Adoption is probably what is growing the fastest.”

The future of the channel

Looking ahead, those who will thrive will need to have a deep understanding of clients and their wants and needs.

“I think the partners that will thrive and survive are those that really have that deep understanding of clients.

“I think you've got to have that insight, that knowledge, and it's going to be about outcomes,” Daley said.

He continued to explain that success will come to those who have domain specialism, or a deep understanding of the business challenges that customers experience.

Risk appetite will also be a major driving force in success of partners.

“I think all partners within kind of the channel are going to need to take bigger risks than what they've done.

“The last couple of years have been around consolidation and scale.

“I think it's about who's got the appetite to be bolder and braver and whether it comes to tying that into the commercial outcomes clients want to achieve, and making sure that we as channel partners are also putting skin in the game,” Daley explained.

Williams believes that as the channel grows, partners will move into services.

Coming from a services background, this is an area he champions, and believes the rest of the industry will follow suit.

“More and more people are starting to offer it now.

“Clients are asking for it, and I think the rebate models from the partners mean that to maintain margins, you have to have services.”

The leadership pair both believe that the industry will continue to see consolidations, but some will be for different reasons than what they have meant historically.

Williams believes many more are to come.

“I think we're moving towards a consolidation [of the market]. We have been and will continue to move towards consolidation.

“But I keep looking around, and the there's a whole bunch that are acquired, but there's still hundreds more that get started every year.

“So, as fast as they're getting consolidated, new ones are starting.

“I don't know whether we'll ever lose the long tail, but I do see consolidation bit continuing.”

Daley discussed his prediction for the future of consolidations within the space, “I think it's possibly going to be a different degree of consolidation.

“I think consolidations that will take place are going to be in the future probably more linked to specialisms, I don't think it's kind of necessarily going to be an economies of scale.”