The Evolving IT Channel Landscape: Key Trends and Technologies for 2025

As the calendars turn to 2025, the MSP and channel landscape is evolving at an unprecedented pace.

The rapid integration of AI and other innovative solutions is reshaping the way vendors, resellers, distributors, MSPs, and hyperscalers operate. The days of operating in isolation are fast becoming a thing of the past, as companies realise that delivering superior customer experiences now requires a holistic, ecosystem-driven approach. 

This article explores the key trends that are set to define the IT channel in the coming year and how these developments are driving deeper collaboration, innovation, and customer satisfaction.

Navigating Economic and Market Pressures

“Looking ahead to 2025, the channel is likely to face continued challenges as it navigates a landscape shaped by both economic and market pressures,” says Terry Storrar, Managing Director UK at Leaseweb. He predicts that “2025 could be another tricky year for the channel.”

“With most businesses not experiencing significant growth themselves, the channel has largely stuck to its core strengths, focusing on what it does best: finding ways to offer more value to clients. 

“For 2025, we anticipate that the focus will remain on cost management, with businesses looking for more conventional ways of operating efficiently.” 

Driven by an increasing need to “find ways to get more for less,” Storrar suggests that there is a continuing trend towards enchancing portfolios which will persist into the new year. He explains: “One of the key strategies for businesses looking to stay competitive will be adding more services to their portfolios. The trend towards increasing value without dramatically increasing costs will continue, especially in regions where we saw good growth in 2024, such as APAC and the UK.”

To remain competitive in this challenging landscape, Storrar says that “agility will continue to be essential; the ability to adapt to shifting client demands and market conditions will be a critical factor in maintaining stability and profitability. 

“While growth may not be the dominant theme in 2025, businesses that can offer flexibility and additional value within their existing frameworks are likely to fare better in a slow-growth environment. “

An Increasingly Complex Threat Landscape

As cyber threats continue to escalate in both volume and sophistication, the demand for comprehensive cybersecurity solutions is higher than ever. Jamie Farrelly, Vice President EMEAI Channel Sales at Commvault, notes that, “it's not just about defence and protection, but monitoring for anomalies so that infiltration is detected early before havoc is wreaked and the all-important ability to recover quickly should the worst happen.” 

Farrelly highlights the change in mindset which is now driving the cybersecurity world. He says: “Over the past year, vendors, resellers, distributors, MSPs and hyperscalers alike are now realising that they can’t achieve this in silo. To achieve true cyber resilience, a whole ecosystem is needed.”

He continues: “Having recognised that no single solution provider can address every security issue for customers, partners are now starting to strategically combine resources and expertise to transform how cybersecurity solutions are built and delivered. The collaboration across different vendors and stakeholders ensures that solutions are comprehensive, not fragmented, and solve problems that in the past may have fallen through the cracks.”

Farrelly believes that, “this shift towards deeper collaboration has been one of the most exciting and impactful changes in recent times, so building strong partnerships and investing into existing relationships should continue to be a focus for the next 12 months and beyond. By working together and addressing all aspects of security, data protection, and recovery in one combined offering, partners can provide true cyber resilience to customers in today’s rapidly changing threat landscape. As the saying goes, ‘teamwork makes the dream work’.”

The Shift to Smaller, Agile Projects

In addition to the push for cyber resilience, Rob Shaw, GM EMEA at Fluent Commerce, highlights another key trend: the demand for smaller, quicker-to-implement technology projects. He says: “Over the past year a lot of businesses have been forced to do a tech refresh, with a significant uptick in ERP projects. This is driven largely by vendors pushing for upgrades due to end-of-life products and the broader move to cloud-based solutions. ERPs are often the backbone of an organisation, which means these updates involve considerable time, cost, and effort.”

Shaw believes that this creates challenges for many businesses as they “are now burdened by these large, resource-intensive projects, which can limit their ability to implement smaller, quicker changes that could make a real difference. This has led to a backlog of initiatives. Many projects that were put on hold over the past 18 months are now being unlocked and competing for attention, creating a bottleneck. Organisations need to address multiple priorities but have a finite amount of resources.

“As a result, there’s a growing demand for smaller, more nimble projects that are quicker to implement and can deliver immediate value,” continues Shaw. “Looking ahead, we’ll continue to see this shift towards smaller, more focused projects that are quick to implement, easy to prove business value, and scalable as the organisation grows. Vendors will likely move away from selling full platforms as a one-size-fits-all solution and instead focus on selling specific use cases or addressing individual challenges that can deliver measurable results in a shorter timeframe.”

Governance, Risk, and Compliance: A Growing Opportunity

Another significant opportunity for the channel in 2025 lies in the growing demand for Governance, Risk, and Compliance (GRC) solutions. As George Bonser, Vice President, EMEA at Drata, explains: “The introduction of new and significant regulatory frameworks, such as NIS2, the EU’s most stringent cybersecurity directive yet, and the Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA) has accelerated growth and interest from the IT channel to make the most of this golden opportunity.” 

He believes that “in 2025, as the regulatory landscape gets ever more complex, we can expect to see a significant uptake in channel partners diversifying their offerings and gearing up to have GRC tools ready to help their clients integrate seamlessly with other existing systems and streamline compliance workflows end-to-end to ensure audit readiness.”

Looking ahead to the new year, Bonser suggests, “distribution partners will become crucial in providing the tools and educating resellers to meet this demand. New Service Providers, especially those specialising in cybersecurity, will drive growth in GRC with GRC-as-a-service and virtual CISO offerings, but the leaders in this field will be those that steer organisations to a risk-aware approach to compliance by harnessing the power of AI and automation.”

Consolidation and Evolution in the Server Market

While many parts of the channel are focusing on growth and innovation, there are also significant changes unfolding in the hardware sector. Bruce Kornfeld, Chief Product Officer at StorMagic, predicts that, “the server vendor market will undergo significant consolidation in 2025, driven by shrinking margins and financial struggles […] seen in the industry (example: SuperMicro).”

By 2025, he foresees “potential buyouts and mergers among manufacturers” driven by tightening margins around x85 servers. Kornfeld concludes: “This trend will reshape competitive dynamics and lead to fewer, more dominant players in the market.”