Is the era of the trusted advisor dead? Forrester predicts rise of gig economy for tech services

"Era of one throat to choke anchored by a single bill will be a thing of the past", outspoken Forrester analyst Jay McBain predicts

VARs and MSPs who position themselves as ‘trusted advisors' could find themselves frozen out as a new gig economy for tech services takes hold.

That's the assertion of outspoken Forrester analyst Jay McBain, who predicts that the "era of one throat to choke anchored by a single bill" will soon "be a thing of the past".

McBain, who has spent recent years monitoring the rise of the "shadow channel", made the claim as he set out six channel predictions for the year ahead.

Amazon caused a stir with the recent launch of its B2B marketplace, and the contention that marketplaces such as this will accelerate the decline of resell formed one of McBain's predictions.

According to Forrester, 17 per cent of B2B transactions will happen through marketplaces by 2020, and McBain warned that this will threaten MSPs and channel providers who have spent recent years touting themselves as one-stop-shop trusted advisors.

"The partner of the future will likely not be a transacting one. It doesn't make sense to the new generation of tech buyers who make two-thirds of all new tech decisions today," said McBain, who is a principal analyst for Forrester and has previously held senior roles at Lenovo and Autotask.

"The new gig economy for tech services has already begun, and partners will need to get into the conversation."

The rise of the partner-to-partner model has been flagged up by the likes of Microsoft in recent years, and McBain (pictured below) agreed that more MSPs and resellers will be forced to buddy up as the decline of account ownership by a single partner and rise of the new tech services gig economy accelerates.

"For example, a CMO may have five different companies installing, implementing, integrating, securing, ensuring compliance, and providing business continuity in a single solution stack," he said.

"This could include a SaaS partner, a digital agency, a systems integrator, multiple ISVs, a startup, a "born in the cloud" provider, and a traditional solution provider. For every dollar they spend with a SaaS platform, they will spend four times that amount with these third parties to make the project a success."

On a related note, and building on a theme that was pursued by CRN recently, McBain predicted that traditional channel programmes will be replaced by ecosystems.

Traditional pyramid-based partner programmes will evolve in favour of those that recognise partners based on their skills around buyer types, sub-industries, geographies, sectors, segments, customer size, and the technology stack, he predicted.

Partners will find new ways to make money in emerging technology, including robotic process automation, McBain added.

Check out his full list of predictions here.