We’ve seen the statistics and read the headlines before: The ways in which businesses managed the impacts of a remote workforce during the pandemic dramatically accelerated their existing digital transformation plans.

In fact, McKinsey suggests that timeline ramped up by three years and found that more than 85 percent of executives in 2020 had increased the use of technologies to meet the needs of the changed workplace.

That rapid digital adoption recast the needs of IT decision-makers, who faced the challenges of navigating the seemingly limitless choice of technology options to find the best end-to-end solutions for their businesses.

It also changed the role of the IT business partner ecosystem forever, as the market demanded a dramatic shift in how technology solutions are sold.

Transformation as a Constant

Three years later, the transformation challenges are no less daunting.

According to TD SYNNEX’s Inaugural Technology Ecosystem Benchmark Report, which surveyed SMB technology resellers from around the globe, the very businesses offering these next-generation (or high-growth) technology solutions recognize that “rapid change has evolved to a state of constant transformation.”

This sentiment is likely driven by the fact that the top requests from their customers and prospects fall into key high-growth areas of security, networking, digital transformation, cloud migration and data center modernization.

Facing the challenges of training and hiring for these skillsets, it’s not surprising to learn that two-thirds of these businesses say “engaging other ecosystem partners” is critical to their success.

The Big Question

Increasing ecosystem partnership is a natural win-win to get to market with these specialized categories, but critical to this success is a global platform that connects ecosystem players and allows for partner-creator solutions.

We must be able to answer this question: How will IT solution providers consume, manage and deliver technology to meet the changing needs of their customers under this reality of constant transformation?

Enter the Orchestration Platform

As cloud and XaaS offerings began to proliferate in the market, software marketplaces have emerged to consolidate the end-to-end experience for end customers, distributors and developers.

But more is needed today.

Enter ecosystem orchestration platforms, which put ecosystem partners in control through data-driven decisions, rich customer insights and solutions aggregation. IDC describes these transformational platforms as “effectively managing business needs” for customers and providing “unique capabilities to manage the way products and solutions from multiple vendors are built into complete end-to-end solutions.”

IT solution providers play a crucial role in helping their customers identify the technologies to meet their needs and help technology developers work more seamlessly with products from different vendors.

Where the software marketplaces of the past presented an opportunity for IT solution providers to providing installation and configuration services, as well as ongoing support and maintenance services, ecosystem orchestration platforms unlock potential for the entire IT landscape.

Benefits of Going User-Experience-First

Underpinned by data and customer insights, channel partners can leverage ecosystem orchestration platforms to develop and grow through a user-experience-first digital platform. These platforms also address the complex challenges of subscription- and consumption-based IT service models by simplifying the management of multi-cloud environments in a single platform.

Specifically, ecosystem orchestration platforms allow participants to:

• Find and evaluate technology products
• Integrate systems
• Leverage pre-built connectors and templates
• Reach larger markets
• Create custom and specialize solutions
• Streamline and automate workflows
• Increase efficiency and productivity
• Reduce manual errors
• Maintain the security and integrity of data flowing between systems
• Simplify invoicing

So, where to Next?

Every evolution of the technology ecosystem unlocks new potential. Cloud cleared the way for new technology innovators. A crowded market ushered in software marketplaces. The pandemic spurred digital transformation. Complex digital environments necessitated solution orchestration platforms.

Perhaps only time — or the next TD SYNNEX Ecosystem report — will tell. But the opportunities presented by ecosystem orchestration platforms are boundless, and could extend beyond the delivery of technology solutions to the creation of proprietary offerings that could one day become intellectual property.

That may seem like a leap — especially for the small and mid-sized IT solution providers — but if there’s one thing we know about the technology ecosystem, it’s that transformation is a constant.