Almost half of channel leaders expect the channel to grow between now and 2020 according to research commissioned by inventory-as-a-service firm Agilitas.
The research commissioned by Agilitas and carried out by OnePoll surveyed 100 senior level executives at leading IT resellers, managed service providers and independent IT channel firms.
The research looked at the financial challenges the industry is set to face between now and 2020. Despite continued market disruption and uncertainty, a significant 47% still expect the channel to grow, 27% expect it to be a similar size with 26% less confident in the channel growing between now and 2020.
The research also examined what channel contracts will look like, revealing that the majority agree that IT based revenue streams will be even more OPEX based by 2020. IT services are expected to see the biggest contract shift from CAPEX to OPEX (30%), followed by hardware sales (19%).
In addition, the channel leaders surveyed also revealed that they expect software and hardware support services to provide some of the strongest revenue streams in 2020.
"The results of our research suggest that the channel will see significant movement to OPEX based support services in the next few years" stated Agilitas CEO, Shaun Lynn. "A rise in support services and contracts moving to an OPEX model provides significant new revenue streams for resellers, managed service providers and independent IT providers alike."