Is channel know-how the key to de-risking enterprise AI plans?

Gartner estimates that 80% of firms will have GenAI APIs/ GenAI apps in production by 2026. But, despite the excitement around AI as the transformative force of our times, there’s growing scrutiny of crucial security and data infrastructure challenges that could derail companies’ ambitions of cutting costs and boosting innovation with AI.

Our own research of 1,000 firms in the UK, US, France, and DACH found that half of the companies regard cost reduction as the top outcome from their intended AI program. 

But these C-level ambitions for AI-driven efficiency and rethinking their organization’s cost base assume that company IT teams’ plans for having an AI-ready tech stack and proper security and governance guardrails are largely on track.

The on-the-ground reality delivers the equivalent of a bucket of ice water to such cozy assumptions.

Falling short

Our data found that enterprises’ data security and cyber-attack response capabilities fall well short of effective progress towards next-generation tech stacks.

The plain fact is that many organizations are still grappling with the fundamental requirements of secure and sustainable business operations - locking down their data assets before they can deliver the unified data platforms and the data connectivity needed for sustainable growth and competitive operations in a fast-changing economy. Some may even be losing the battle.

Almost half (48%) said that concerns around security are preventing them from moving their file data to the cloud. More than half (53%) admitted their data isn’t backed up, immutable, and easily recoverable.

Confusion, disruption, and downtime

This lack of a secure platform is leading to greater business risk, confusion, and a lack of control over cyber threats and their consequences for their organization. More than two-thirds of the survey –70% – said they have experienced a cyber attack over the last 12 months. Almost two-thirds reckon they can recover critical data after a cyber attack, but nearly half (45%) nevertheless admitted they had suffered a security breach, resulting in a ransom, downtime, data loss or reputational damage, over the last year.

The results of such institutional overwhelm range from disruption to prolonged shutdown. Companies are on average losing five weeks of productivity to cyber attacks, but in certain markets, such as manufacturing, downtime from malicious activity was up to six weeks.

With IT teams and CISOs lacking the resources and in-house expertise to create a robust and integrated data platform that could yield new customer insights and foundations for AI tools, it’s small wonder that more than a third – 34% – of the companies we spoke to believe that security and privacy concerns are roadblocks to successful AI adoption.

New partners, new partnerships

Companies’ faltering progress towards AI – especially when it comes to data security and governance – is creating new opportunities for strategic channel partners and integrators that learned the lessons of the pandemic and refocused closely on delivering customer value and meeting customers’ rapidly changing infrastructure needs.

These smart VARs, with their deep product and solution knowledge and unrivalled implementation expertise, can help innovation-minded enterprises to take the necessary strategic steps to contain the security risks around modernization and prepare for the successful adoption of AI tools.

Realizing the opportunity

This shift can be achieved through channel partners taking a strategic lead with customers in four main ways:

• Rethinking and forging closer enterprise customer relationships, whether delivering strategic advice to boards and lines of business leaders, on future AI and business transformation needs, rather than just supporting IT buyers
• Moving enterprise IT teams away from volume approaches to technology acquisition that have often resulted in vendor ‘lock-in’ and instead, embracing more flexible marketplace approaches, including providing simpler enterprise access to global cloud providers’ solutions
• Resolving enterprises’ longstanding (and often vexed) infrastructure consolidation and cloud migration issues: expert channel partners’ strategic knowledge and ‘coal-face’ implementation know-how will enable organisations, that have previously been running to stand still, to design and execute on phased approaches to improving outdated processes and trialling AI tools safely in their business operations
• Using their deep data security and governance know-how to identify and contain the risks from strategic business transformation and AI projects.

VARs where V means value and strategic insight

Companies have much work to do to contain the risks, given that AI tools will fully access their organization’s data, its processes, applications, workflows, and internal/external policies as never before, to deliver a competitive edge.

There is an upside. Indeed, channel partners who quickly refocused on delivering value and resolving unprecedented security amid the shift to hybrid working and reconfigured supply chains are already grasping the opportunities. Even against the backdrop of an unpredictable global economy and AI’s remarkable possibilities.

Yes, UK organizations have yet to establish secure data management and connectivity platforms for the AI-driven world. But there’s little doubt expert channel partners with a renewed value focus represent the missing link for hard-pressed firms building strategic plans to consolidate their data platforms and harness the unique capabilities of AI for their organization.