Partner opportunities on the rise as demand for co-managed services grows

Partners critical as organisations reshape IT strategies to support both transformation and long-term resilience.

Resilience, AI and cloud adoption are the leading forces reshaping IT strategies of the nation’s organisations, according to ASI Solutions’ 2025 Growth and resiliency report.

The narrow focus on two or three areas are directly tied to business outcomes, with leaders prioritising security, upskilling employees and AI-driven transformation to strengthen long-term stability and performance.

“The leaders that will succeed are those turning IT from a cost centre into a driver of resilience, using technology to reduce risk, lift productivity and create measurable business value,” said Nathan Lowe, MD, ASI Solutions.

Developed in partnership with Tech Research Asia (TRA), the report is based on a survey of more than 500 Australian IT and business decision-makers across government, education and commercial sectors.

The research also highlights an increasing demand for co-managed service models to accelerate transformation.

Organisations are partnering more closely with technology providers to manage complex workloads, enhance cybersecurity operations and modernise infrastructure as internal teams struggle to keep pace with the speed of change.

This collaborative approach is helping enterprises maintain momentum while upskilling internal teams for long-term capability building.

The message for partners is that security, upskilling employees and AI-driven transformation are priorities as organisations seek both stability and performance.

“Organisations can’t innovate effectively without stability, and they can’t stay resilient without evolving,” Lowe told CRN Australia.

AI is becoming integral to operations and strategy, with organisations looking to embed AI into high-value processes where it can deliver measurable outcomes. The role for partners will be to help organisations build the right foundation to reduce risks and maximise opportunities.

“The best starting point is to build strong governance frameworks, clear acceptable-use policies, responsible AI principles, and a focus on data quality,” said Lowe.

“Once those frameworks are in place, organisations can focus on a few targeted areas where AI can make a tangible difference, such as workflow automation, customer engagement or productivity gains,” he added.

However, organisations face significant hurdles, with 40 percent of respondents not prepared for cyber threats, even as incidents become more complex and frequent.

“Many have invested heavily in tools; however, the real challenge now is improving how they respond and recover,” Lowe said.

In addition, 50 percent struggle to hire IT staff. Skills shortages, particularly in cybersecurity and AI, remain the top barrier to execution.

“This shortage is slowing projects, stretching internal teams and forcing leaders to delay or scale back transformation plans,” he said.