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Top IT Service Provider Opportunity? Security, NetEnrich Survey Finds

For the second consecutive year, security is the top business opportunity for VARs and MSPs, according to a NetEnrich survey of 200 IT professionals in the IT services market.

But security doesn't exist in a vacuum. Those IT service providers will also pursue major infrastructure and application management opportunities in 2018 -- followed by a tie between disaster recovery and backup, and mobile device management, the survey found.

Roll all those trends together, and it's clear IT service providers want to safeguard customer assets while delivering an improved user experience.

IT Service Provider Challenges

Still, that journey won't be easy. IT security remains the hardest skill to hire for this year, followed by cloud infrastructure and artificial intelligence (tied), and DevOps, the survey found. While IT service providers seek talent to fill those roles, the face heightened competition from players adding adding cloud-centric services; cloud-native providers entering the market; and corporate IT departments canceling partner relationships, the survey revealed.

To overcome those market challenges, IT service providers will need to align with best-in-class software providers, while showing a willingness to collaborate on sales and marketing, the survey found.

Where does potentially NetEnrich fit into all this? The company specializes in outsourced IT operations, cloud, network/data center and security services. IT service providers can lean on NetEnrich for those services. Through outsourced relationships with NetEnrich, the IT service providers can spend more time moving close to their customers and focusing on business outcomes.

Joe Panettieri

Joe Panettieri is co-founder & editorial director of MSSP Alert and ChannelE2E, the two leading news & analysis sites for managed service providers in the cybersecurity market.