The MSP of 2027 won’t be defined by the size of its stack
Acronis convened a group of Cape Town managed service providers, resellers and channel partners for an executive dinner roundtable in June, on a question…
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Acronis convened a group of Cape Town managed service providers, resellers and channel partners for an executive dinner roundtable in June, on a question that is becoming more urgent for the technology channel: how do security providers scale capability when skills are scarce, client expectations are rising and the threat environment is moving faster than traditional operating models?
The session was framed around the theme “The Autonomous MSP: How AI Is Solving the Security Talent Crisis MSPs Can’t Hire Their Way Out Of”. What unfolded was not a narrow product conversation but a candid market discussion about compliance, complexity, trust, talent and the changing role of intelligent platforms in helping managed service providers create capacity.
About 30 people gathered across two tables – a group that in other contexts competes for the same customers, talent and commercial opportunities. The tone was nonetheless open and engaged.
From the opening discussion, it was clear that the cybersecurity conversation has shifted. Clients are no longer only asking whether they have the right tools in place. They are asking harder questions about risk, resilience, reporting, compliance, recovery and business continuity.
Popia, Fica, cyber insurance and reporting obligations were all raised as real client concerns. But the group quickly moved beyond the idea that compliance is the same as security. Several participants pointed to the gap between regulatory frameworks and what happens on the ground. Regulation often lags the threat environment. Technology often moves faster than governance. And in some organisations, compliance becomes a tick-box exercise rather than a meaningful risk conversation.
Complexity is inside the stack
The question around the table was not “what do we need to do?” It was “what should we do?”
Compliance may satisfy a minimum requirement, but it does not automatically create resilience, and it does not guarantee faster response, clearer ownership or better decision-making in the moments that matter.
For MSPs, that creates both pressure and opportunity. The pressure is that clients increasingly expect them to interpret a complex security environment on their behalf. The opportunity is to help clients move from compliance anxiety to resilience confidence.
Complexity does not always live where clients think it does. It often sits inside the stack: across disconnected tools, legacy systems, overlapping vendors, fragmented processes and unclear ownership.
In many organisations, the risk is not that there are no tools. It is that there are too many moving parts and not enough clarity about how they work together when something goes wrong.
That is where cybersecurity becomes a business issue. A ransomware event, breach or outage is not only a technical incident: it can affect revenue, reputation, continuity, trust and leadership credibility. The conversation returned repeatedly to the point that cyber risk is now an overarching…