A new Westcon-Comstor survey found that 87% of channel partners are changing how they plan, procure, and deliver IT infrastructure projects as hardware price volatility and supply constraints continue to disrupt customer deployments.
The findings suggest partners are increasingly turning to capacity planning, accelerated purchasing, and vendor changes to keep projects on schedule despite ongoing market uncertainty.
The 100+ Tech Xpert members surveyed for this report are technical specialists from value-added resellers, systems integrators, and MSPs across Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA), and Asia-Pacific (APAC).
Partners increase capacity planning and switch vendors
Among those measures is nearly one in three (29 percent) already switching vendors or platforms when availability constraints arise.
Increased use of managed services and optimization techniques to reduce reliance on memory-intensive workloads is among the other steps partners are taking.
The most widely adopted action by partners (60 percent) is improved infrastructure capacity planning as they seek to better align supply with customer demand.
Overall, 75 percent of partners reported changes in buying behavior, with more than half (52 percent) reporting that they or their customers have accelerated hardware purchases to mitigate risk, and 23 percent reporting delays or cancellations.
Supply constraints accelerate some cloud migrations
Further, hardware availability influences workload placement. Nearly half of partners (45 percent) reported accelerated cloud adoption, while seven percent shifted back to on-prem environments.
Among other key findings are:
- 27 percent of partners use storage tiering or caching to reduce reliance on RAM.
- 25 percent are moving workloads or components to managed services.
- 24 percent cite inability to scale capacity as a key risk.
- 39 percent mentioned technical risks, including performance instability, degraded user experience, increased operational complexity, and reduced resilience.
- 47 percent say they’re willing to switch vendors depending on the specific situation.
Partners adopt managed services and optimization strategies
“Partners are helping customers plan earlier, adapt architectures, and stay flexible so they can keep projects moving despite uncertainty,” said McGregor.
“That ability to balance immediate performance and long-term requirements is becoming increasingly critical. It also demonstrates the strategic role that channel partners, supported by distribution, can play in building resilience and helping customers navigate the pressures that have quickly become a systemic feature of the market.”