The New Operating Reality For Channel Partners

Channel partners are being pulled in two directions at once: a surge in demand driven by AI, and a widening gap in the skills needed to deliver it.

At NEXT+ Summit powered by D&H Advanced Solutions+, channel leaders described a market where artificial intelligence is reshaping expectations across security, infrastructure and services. Many organizations are moving forward with AI initiatives but often lack the internal expertise to support them. That gap is creating new opportunities for solution providers to expand their role with customers.

Two distinct security questions and concerns are coming through from partners as AI initiatives accelerate, said Landon Scott, vice president of US channel sales at Fortinet.

Scott said partners are asking: “How do you help me with security with AI for my customers? And can you actually ship and deliver it with all the concerns about availability and skyrocketing memory prices?”

Scott said the challenge is less about entirely new threats and more about the scale and speed at which they are evolving, forcing partners to respond faster across increasingly complex environments.

Platform Strategy Gains Ground

As demand grows, partners are also navigating a crowded vendor landscape. AI-driven offerings continue to enter the market, giving customers more choice while raising the stakes on decision making.

“There’s a new security vendor coming out every day. They will tell you they are the latest, greatest. They are using AI to do everything,” said Greg Starr, channel manager at Meriplex. “It creates instability for your platforms if your mindset is always to be evaluating the next product. Your clients want stability. You’ve got to lower your risk.”

That focus is pushing partners toward a smaller group of trusted vendors and more integrated platforms that work across cloud, data center and endpoint environments.

“It’s just picking the right horse and riding it all the way through,” Starr said.

Midmarket Demand Expands Opportunity

In the SMB and midmarket, customers are moving quickly to take advantage of AI but often need help to operationalize it and grow AI initiatives with leaner teams than their enterprise counterparts.

“They are seeing what the enterprise companies are doing, but they just don’t have the resources to do it themselves. They are looking for AI to help, but they can do it only to a certain extent and then they need someone with more history and experience,” said Matt Shelley, COO AT VLCM.

That reliance is positioning regional partners as an essential extension of internal IT teams in the midmarket.

“[D&H] does something unique in the market where they really address the part of our business community that really looks to that local partner that understands the region,” said Erik Day, SVP and GM of small and medium business at Dell.

Day highlighted how companies like VLCM bring expertise, local connections and established regional trust, and can effectively execute solutions for midsize customers with an understanding of their unique needs.

Partnerships Enable Execution

Close collaboration across vendors, distributors and partners remains critical as AI speed and complexity increases.

“It takes the village as a whole to protect clients individually,” Starr said.

As customer expectations rise, partners that can deliver consistency and execution are increasingly standing out in a faster-moving market.

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