2025 Channel Partners Expo biggest takeaways: adapt, innovate and reinvent

Channel Partners Expo 2025 – Theme: Channel Forward

Channel Partners Conference & Expo took place from 24 March to 27 March 2025 in Las Vegas, NV. This year’s show consisted of approximately 150 speakers, 300 sponsors and exhibitors, and 8,000 attendees.

Below are some of the biggest takeaways from the keynotes and sessions attended at the event.

New buyer behavior prompts new channel behavior

Canalys Chief Analyst Jay McBain shared several insights during his “Hot Data: MSP megatrends - making sense of the US$5.4T IT market” keynote, including four key trends to watch in 2025:

• Trend 1 - Millennial buyers: 51% of buyers are millennials who have different buying behaviors, prefer to buy via online marketplaces, are integration-first and have seven partners they know and trust.
• Trend 2 - Platforms: platforms are synonymous with partnerships and consist of not just products but services that surround them. Platforms require extensive partnerships (technology integrators, service partnerships, channel partnerships, strategic alliances and marketing partnerships) across the entire ecosystem.
• Trend 3 - Major shifts are occurring in the economics of partnering: most (80%) partners deliver three or more services to their customers. The most prominent services delivered are procurement (98% of partners), managed services (67%) and consulting/advisory (56%).
• Trend 4 - Gen AI: new Gen AI offerings are enacting micro-consumption models that are billed at a dollar per customer use. Also, 83% of the world’s data sits on-premises and at the edge, which is unstructured and will be tapped into and used to train and tune future AI models resulting in better, more personalized insights.

Partnerco play a vital role in the telco to techco transformation

As telcos expand beyond legacy connectivity like DSL and cable modem into techcos by delivering more modern and higher growth connectivity services like fiber and fixed wireless access (FWA), and IT services like cybersecurity, cloud, and AI, their reliance on channel partners (partnerco) to provide customers with comprehensive solutions rises markedly.

The speakers on “Power Panel: the channel connection for telcos” and “Making money on channel activations with the Big 3” panels signaled a noticeable shift from “direct vs. indirect” to “direct and indirect,” resulting in:

• increased investment in improving partner programs, platforms and engagements.
• leadership changes with a higher priority on channel experience.
• co-developing new technologies with channel partners and co-marketing/selling solutions.
• growing recognition of channel partners’ role and value in the customer journey which includes high goals set for channel sales.
  • for example, Lumen's 70% target in two to five years and Verizon's moving from single-digit to double-digit distribution through indirect channels.

Technology Services Distributors (TSDs) value proposition in question

In the beginning, TSDs primarily offered telco services but are adapting to their customers’ needs by expanding their suppliers to offer more IT solutions like SaaS, cybersecurity and AI. During the “CEO perspectives: the future of technology services distribution” keynote, panelists admitted the industry is facing challenges proving its value to suppliers and partners, continued price compression from legacy connectivity services and a need to help partners like tech advisors (TAs) expand sales from single product to multi-products for improved customer wallet share.

As the intermediary of intermediaries, TSDs discussed playing a key role in enabling partners to expand the sale of supplier solutions by offering:

• partner support such as marketing, lead generation and consulting services, and tailoring them based on partner needs and maturity levels.
• business enablement, not just sales enablement, services like integrating various technologies.
• vetting and grading suppliers to ensure they meet channel program standards.
• specialized practice areas with dedicated support/solution engineers.

M&A and private equity are prevalent in the TSD industry, and there is an expectation that market consolidation will continue and there will be only two to three major players in the future. Also, the entry of private equity is putting more scrutiny on the industry and impacting the way it operates, and causing it to mature faster.

PSA supports telco–IT convergence

Partners play a pivotal role in telco transformations to techco and the tools they use are just as important. The best PSA tools are those that streamline operations and cut administrative overhead, reduce procurement and billing complexity for both telco and IT services, and meet regulatory compliance standards. HaloPSA and Rev.io’s solutions announcements at the event are designed to enable partners to do just that.

HaloPSA

• Announced integration of its HaloPSA platform with AT&T and Datagate, a telecom billing solution provider which will allow MSPs to automate the procurement and billing processes for connectivity services directly within their PSA system and eliminate the need to operate different IT and telco tools.

Rev.io

• Exhibited its integrated billing, PSA, and payment solutions platform designed to help MSPs better manage telco service delivery, and announced the early access program for its PSA software, which will launch later this year. It will provide MSPs with a first look at the platform, an opportunity to provide feedback before the official release, and access to features like customer management, service requests and tickets, scheduling and time tracking, workflows, and mobile accessibility.

Cybersecurity for SMBs

The cybersecurity market is one of the fastest-growing in the IT industry and cybersecurity services are projected to US$185 billion in total addressable market (TAM) in 2025, over 91% will be sold via partners, and will grow 13% year on year.

During “The SMB cybersecurity gold rush: 4 keys to success and 1 fatal trap” keynote, various topics were discussed which focused on the current SMB cybersecurity environment which is plagued by:

• increased and more sophisticated cyber-attacks from threat actors. Joe Sykora from Coro stated -
  • SMBs will account for 60% of global cybersecurity spending by 2026.
  • 71% of SMB leaders think about their company being breached every day and 75% of SMBs spend three to six hours daily managing cybersecurity tools.
• new data protection and compliance regulations (such as GDPR and CCPA) are forcing SMBs to improve their cybersecurity posture.
• cyber insurance providers mandate SMBs to meet stringent security measures, driving SMBs to invest more in cybersecurity solutions.
• the shift to remote and hybrid work expanded the attack surface for SMBs, necessitating new security approaches.

Artificial Intelligence is a key differentiator

AI was a topic of discussion in many sessions with key points including:

• Organizations are using more AI solutions internally to reduce costs and improve business processes.
• The scarcity of AI talent is driving businesses to seek AI solutions and expertise from partners and vendors.
• Exponential growth in available data is driving demand for AI-driven insights and more businesses are adopting AI to gain a competitive edge.
• Customer expectations for personalized experiences are driving the adoption of AI in areas like marketing and customer service.

Conclusion: adapt, innovate and reinvent

The channel industry stands at the precipice of a revolutionary transformation, driven by the convergence of telco evolution, TSD reinvention, PSA automation, SMB cybersecurity demands and the AI revolution. And those that remain committed to traditional go-to-market models and only make subtle changes will eventually cease to exist.

For telcos, IT vendors, TSDs and channel partners, the message is clear - evolution is not just an option, it is a necessity. The traditional boundaries between telcos, technology providers and channel partners are dissolving, giving rise to a new, hyper-connected, AI-driven, platform-based ecosystem where value creation and reporting are paramount to survival and success.