All professionals involved in the managed services industry can rejoice with the news that the popular UK Managed Services Summit held in London at 155 Bishopsgate returned on the 15th of September 2021 after a 12-month absence. Hosted by IT Europa and Angel Business Communications, it’s a welcome return for the summit after a rough year of online events, with several top industry experts lined up to speak about the latest developments impacting the managed services sector in Europe.
The UK Managed Services Summit 2021 comes at a time when the rise of remote work is creating a “huge opportunity” for MSPs. This is the view of Greg Jones, business development director of EMEA at Datto, who said the transition to hybrid working due to the pandemic has “rapidly accelerated cloud adoption over the last 18 months” at IT Europa’s ‘Leaders in Discussion’ virtual roundtable last May.
This was the eleventh edition of the UK Managed Services Summit, where, like previous years, a range of industry experts assembled to deliver insightful keynote and panel speaking sessions exploring an array of topics, allowing delegates to learn more about the challenges that MSPs will be up against in 2021 and beyond. Specific topics that speakers addressed include:
- How to build and increase value - both for MSPs and their clients
- The impact of new technologies
- Changes in buyer behaviour
- Digitalisation and Business Transformation
- Security and Compliance
- Emerging opportunities such as Artificial intelligence, Blockchain and IoT
- Cloud, Hybrid and Edge Computing
- Commoditisation and Differentiation
- Increasing Efficiency
- Resource Management
- Training & Skills
Among keynote speakers announced for the summit, was culture-as-a-service expert Kate Wood, who provided the opening keynote titled ‘Culture for Growth’. Wood provides culture-as-a-service to various enterprises to improve their employee engagement strategy while boosting the performances of their businesses.
In addition to Wood, we also had insight from the keynote speaker and author of the Business Book of 2020, ‘The Human Edge’, Greg Orme, who delivered a keynote session called ‘Sharpen Your Human Edge in The Digital Economy’. Orne is an expert in and familiar with these sorts of events and will contribute to the summit by sharing his knowledge about the human qualities that have become more valuable as technology develops and the changes 2020 brought to IT processes. A copy of ‘The Human Edge’, Orne’s award-winning book, was given free to those attending the summit in London.
The summit wrapped up with a ‘no-holds-barred’ MSP debate with a panel of four leading the discussion, including Malcom Orekoya from Netutils, Andy Horn from IntraLAN, Graham Lane from Cheeky Munkey, and Ian Luckett from IT Experts. Titled ‘The Big Debate’, all four panelists discussed a plethora of engaging MSP-related topics, allowing delegates to get involved, ask questions, and offer their opinions. Throughout the day there was also many opportunities for delegates to take part in Q&A sessions and for them to network and meet with potential business partners.
We thank all those that attended the Managed Services Summit UK 2021, and look forward to meeting again in 2022!