Channel Partner Insight was happy to reveal the companies who have made it through to be shortlisted in the European MSP Innovation Awards 2022 earlier in the year.
The standard of entries was extremely high.
The ‘perfect storm' of challenges of supply chain constraints, inflation, Covid and the Russia-Ukraine conflict seems to have sparked a flurry of innovative "outside the box" thinking to adapt, adjust and thrive throughout the European market.
Back for its fourth year, we are due to announce the winners - in person - in an exclusive historic site in the heart of London on Thursday 29th September.
Here, Zenzero tells us about what made the firm stand out among its peers, and where the business is headed next for partners.
Congratulations for being shortlisted for the Next Generation MSP Innovation Award in this year's European MSP Innovation Awards. What does it mean to be highlighted as a partner in this away?
As an MSP that strives to offer an increasing array of ‘next-generation' IT services to organisations across the UK, this Innovation Award nomination is extremely well received.
It highlights the remarkable work that we are delivering, whilst showcasing a demand for specialist services and cutting-edge solutions such as data analytics, low-code mobile applications and augmented reality.
How has the managed services market changed from your perspective over the last year?
Over the last year there has been a surge in popularity for automation solutions and cloud technologies.
In a post-covid era, it has become apparent that organisations of all shapes and sizes are looking for ways to makes processes more efficient and less reliant on human interaction.
Transforming out-dated paper based, time intensive business processes into digital, automated processes saves huge amounts of time which can be reallocated to other business activities, creating a considerable increase in return on IT investment.
Do you anticipate any other significant changes in your market over the next 12 months?
With sustainability hot on the agenda, organisations are looking to make conscious efforts to improve their sustainability practices.
To this end, we predict that services such as virtual reality and augmented reality are going to become more prevalent. Solutions like these allow customers to visualise finished products in detail even before a single component has been manufactured.
It cuts out emissions as a result of travel and enables buyers worldwide to visualise concepts in the comfort of their own home or office.
In other scenarios, virtual reality allows architects to show new property development ideas; enabling domestic and international parties to engage and discuss changes well before the groundworks have started to limit any material waste or environmental damage.
What are the most common questions you ask your vendors? Has what you expect from your vendors changed as a result of the challenges of this year?
We only look to work with vendors who push boundaries and don't settle for the norm. To maintain innovation, we must work with like-minded partners which includes worldwide brands such as Microsoft and Dell.
Understanding how their revolutionary products and services align with our clients to improve the way people work is vital. The rate of change in IT is scary; we see it as our duty to guide organisations down the right path in order to help them achieve their objectives and achieve more with technology.
Could you pick out any nuances in your European channel? What is selling particularly well in specific geographies as an example?
In our experience, when talking to UK businesses about cyber security there is an increasing interest in protecting data and IP but still a reluctance to invest in defences or enhanced processes.
Opinions are still that ‘it won't happen to me'. This interest in cyber security has been particularly elevated by the attack from Russia on Ukraine and the associated threat to NATO countries.
The UK is unlike other countries in Europe such as Sweden or Belgium, where victims of cyber-attacks are significantly more likely to report falling victim to fraud and subsequently make changes to the business to counter these incidents.
Changes can include technological advancements but even more importantly, end user training to develop a strong ‘human firewall' is on the rise.
What are you most excited about for the future in terms of the channel and growth?
Over the past few years we have seen cloud platforms and modern workplace environments become more pervasive across the channel, what comes next is an even more exciting wave of innovation as we use a wider range or even more innovative technologies.
This next phase of technology adoption is based upon the wide ranging innovation that has happen across cloud, platform and technology providers which now puts exiting tools in the hands of MSPs.
With clients better able to adapt to take adventive of AI and virtual reality technologies, providing great leaps forward in productivity and innovation from the deployment of new technologies is now becoming the core business of MSPs across Europe.
