A recent survey of 1,005 IT professionals conducted by Certinia found that 81% of organizations are investing in AI primarily to increase efficiency, while 69% aim to enhance service quality, and 66% seek to improve profitability. The survey also identified that 54% of respondents view AI adoption and navigating significant economic change as the top external challenges they will face in the next 12 months. Other challenges included rising labor costs and increased competition, both at 49%. To overcome these hurdles, 61% of participants plan to rely more on AI, 60% aim to increase skill sets, and 57% intend to manage services more efficiently. Internally, the top challenges cited were improving productivity (58%), increasing profitability (48%), and balancing workloads (46%).
Furthermore, 85% of respondents indicated their organization’s intention to expand their professional services teams in 2024, with approximately 50% expecting a more than 10% increase in headcount. Almost every respondent (99%) expects their professional services to contribute significantly towards achieving key business objectives, with 63% recognizing professional services as a profit center for their organization.
This is dense data and points to providers’ embrace of the technology.
What I want to focus on is the expansion of professional services. Often, emerging IT providers and MSPs concentrate only on recurring revenue, frequently fueled by the marketing message of many vendors. That said, most best-in-class providers have very healthy professional services businesses…. Which has the often-considered-bad word consulting attached. Consulting is a valuable, critical part of the business; right now, AI advice is needed. As the data shows.