With the hyperbole around agentic AI and the ‘SaaSpocalypse’ standing as sentinels for the future of the technology services industry, you might be forgiven for thinking the role technology service providers like MSPs play for their clients is in grave danger. For those who fail to adapt and embrace the new waves of technology delivery and business models, that may be true, and some will not survive.
Of the more than 1,500 MSPs in Australia, over 80% are still founder-led, and many are founder-owned. That means the long-term relationships between customer and service provider are usually built, nurtured and grown by those founders and owners. Founders and entrepreneurs have a rare combination of optimism and resilience that keeps them going through thick and thin. It attracts people who want to work in dynamic, customer-facing, technically interesting and sales roles, where solving complex business problems is at the forefront of everyday work. Those people stay even when the going gets tough and easier, if less interesting, career options abound.
The atomic IT activities that make up a broader service supporting an organisation’s ability to deliver for its customers will certainly commoditise in an automated, AI-driven world. But the intimate client knowledge and strategic firepower that secure information, keep systems running and enable platform transformation, in the constant quest to do business better, sit firmly with the people in service provider organisations. They earn the deep respect clients have for their technology partner, and that partners have for their clients in return. Now is the time to lean into these relationships: to co-develop a new way of working, deliver true business value and, importantly, not lose the deep IP that keeps the service provider–client ecosystem alive.
Market studies show that people-centric capability, knowledge and empathy for clients are what keep customers loyal for years beyond the written contract terms. The number one reason technology leaders give for choosing a service provider is genuine knowledge of their business, followed by technical capability, strong business ethics and, finally, price.
The challenge of rebooting operating, business and pricing models could seem insurmountable to those outside the industry. But for a service provider industry mostly built and run by owners and founders, optimism about achieving the transformation needed remains high. Many may see that optimism in the face of adversity as foolish; we would argue it is simply another day in the life of an MSP.
Long may it remain so.
This article first appeared on LinkedIn on 23 June 2026.