XChange NexGen 2023

The forward-looking XChange NexGen Conference focuses heavily on what's coming down the pike for the most progressive MSPs. The COVID-19 pandemic might be over, but it has accelerated emerging technology trends for businesses around the globe. These businesses are now grappling with a hybrid workforce and brand-new IT requirements, all while striving to meet expectations for uber-responsive customer experiences. The XChange NexGen event brings together innovative technology experts, futurists, and future-minded solution providers for keynotes, informative panels and peer-to-peer networking to help the channel stay on the bleeding edge.

Get all of CRN's coverage of the event here and follow along on Twitter at #NGC23.

XChange NexGen 2023 Wrap-Up
The CRN editorial team was on the ground in Houston this week at NexGen 2023 and spoke with MSPs about some of the biggest technology trends, such as generative AI, and how they plan on implementing what they learned within their own businesses.

Pax8 Preps New MSP Cloud Marketplace For Launch
The company, best known for bringing cloud-based technologies to MSPs, is in the process of rolling out a new cloud marketplace that uses AI and machine learning to help MSPs learn about the gaps in what their customers are using and anticipate future requirements.

Summit 7 Exec Tells MSPs How To Guard Against Insider Threats
Businesses may leave access paths open and not check to see all the different ways an employee could get into customer data, according to Joy Beland, Summit 7 Systems’ vice president of partner strategy and cybersecurity education.

MSSP CEO: Customer Execs Have ‘Gone Numb’ To Selling Cybersecurity Through Fear
Central Technology Solutions, Xperteks, General Informatics and Nexus IT executives talk about adding vCISO, vCIO, compliance-as-a-service offerings.

Breaking Down Managed Services Profitability: 5 Things To Know
Kyle Christensen, speaker, coach and founder of K7 Leadership deconstructed managed services profitability by laying out the definition, the methodology and problems, and how to measure the budget and variable costs at XChange NexGen 2023.

MSPs Reveal How They’re Helping SMB Customers Start Their Cloud Journey
Despite all the hype around moving to the cloud that has been going on for years, the reality is that there is still a wide swath of SMBs that have yet to get much beyond the basics of even cloud backups or Microsoft Office and are turning to their local MSPs for help. Here’s what several MSPs tell CRN about the opportunities they are seeing.

Here Are 12 Hot Software Products And Services For MSPs
MSPs who attended XChange NexGen 2023 in Houston this week got a chance to peruse some of the hottest emerging products and services in IT across security, cloud and AI.

Sherweb Executive: ‘The Name Of The Game Is AI Readiness’
‘The AI future is extremely practical and a fantastic opportunity, and we’re investing a lot into that,’ says Michael Slater, head of sales for Microsoft and cybersecurity at Sherweb.

ThreatLocker CEO Outlines The Perfect Malware Attack
‘Malware is just software. So if we want to create successful malware what we need to do is create successful software,’ says Danny Jenkins, CEO of ThreatLocker.

MSP Executives Debate How To Best Pay Salespeople
Executives from Pileus, Rx Technology, ABM and K7 debate ways to best compensate sales employees.

Here Are 5 Things To Know When Selling Your MSP: Expert
‘When you sell a business, don’t just think about the price that you’re selling for. Think about your net working capital in there, and that’s hard for a lot of business owners because working capital is the accounts receivable minus the accounts payable,’ says John Holland, managing director of Corporate Finance Associates.

GenAI Will ‘Dwarf’ The Internet’s Innovation Cycle, Says Intermedia Exec
Generative AI isn’t ‘overhyped’ and MSPs have a massive opportunity to help SMBs harness GenAI and bring it safely into their existing workflows, Mark Sher, senior vice president of product marketing for Intermedia, tells an audience of MSPs at XChange NexGen 2023.

Layered Security, Best Practices Key To Cybersecurity Protection: Blackpoint Cyber
‘Clients want to be able to figure out how to standardize their stack. The problem that we have is, there are 1,000 security vendors that are out there with a high level of overlap across a lot of those things. And how do we make sense of what we do and what we choose and what we don’t choose, and does it make any sense?’ says Justin Weller, director of product marketing at Blackpoint Cyber.

Pia Channel Chief On Getting To A ‘New Level Of Using AI As A Tool’
‘To make us more efficient and make us more profitable ... we have to evolve to the next level. And how do we do that? How do we use our tools to evolve to the next level? ... You do that through standardization, consistency through projects,’ Tim Coach, Pia’s global channel chief, tells an audience of MSPs at the XChange NexGen conference.

Evolve Management Exec Reveals How MSPs Can Empower The Next Generation Of IT Leaders
‘Our platform contains all the C- level know-how and automatically sees your cybersecurity gaps and compliance gaps of your clients. And we enable that as a full multitenancy platform since we’re a 100 percent channel company,’ says Royi Barnea, Cynomi’s vice president of channel sales.

Cynomi Exec To MSSPs: Virtual CISO Services Is ‘One Of The Top Two That Offers Very High Margins’
“It was very dramatic and also preventable,” CyberQP COO Jim Jessup told a crowd.

With AI On The Rise, One MSP Builds A Chatbot With A Cajun Accent
The CEOs of Phantom Technology Solutions and General Informatics talk AI adoption.

‘Nightmare’ Weekend Showed One Cybersecurity Expert Importance Of ZSP
“It was very dramatic and also preventable,” CyberQP COO Jim Jessup told a crowd.

How Understanding Neuroscience Can Transform MSP Business: 5 Things To Know
‘If your wellness program and your performance management and culture are not inseparable then your employees are failing to reach their greatest potential in life and work and your shareholders are not achieving your highest ROI. I guarantee your organization has not and will not reach its greatest potential until you intertwine these two objectives,’ entrepreneur and coaching firm CEO Aaron Brown tells the audience.

Fortinet Exec: New Offer Development Framework Brings Security Best Practices, Policies To MSSPs
‘We’ve gathered the best practices, and because of that simplicity will be right there with you. We’ll help you wrap up your first couple of customers. Those best practices have really been formalized now by Fortinet into a set of eight solution packages,’ says Michael O’Brien, Fortinet’s regional vice president of strategic routes to market.

How MSPs Can Harness GenAI To Keep Customers On The Cutting Edge
‘At the end of the day, I don’t think most humans can be replaced by AI, but I do think that humans with AI can replace humans without AI,’ said technology trends expert Crystal Washington, at the XChange NexGen 2023 conference.

ScalePad’s Eric Torres: ‘We Can Automate Your QBR Process’ Through Lifecycle Insights
‘You’ve got all the tools in place. We hook into those tools, and we’re pulling that data out of those so that your QBR process is a matter of a 20-minute prep before you walk into that meeting,’ said ScalePad’s Eric Torres.

Cybersecurity Expert: For Winning MSSP Strategy, Look To Doctors
‘You assess, report, prescribe and ultimately profit,’ Bruce McCully told a crowd of solution providers Sunday.