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Competing in the New IT Channel

How U.S. VARs, MSPs, and solution providers must evolve to win. A field guide for leaders who have stopped waiting for direction and started defining it.

Be the First to Know When this Report Drops

The 2027 State of the Industry report is MarketDesign Co.'s field guide to the U.S. IT channel. It combines published research from Forrester, Gartner, Deloitte, McKinsey, Bain, and others with MDCo's own client engagement data to show how VARs, MSPs, distributors, and solution providers can protect margin, earn vendor funding, adopt AI responsibly, and grow on purpose. Every section ends with moves leaders can make this quarter.

Report drops early November.

Key Findings 

The five forces reshaping the U.S. IT channel:

  1. Margin compression. Hardware margins of two to five percent can no longer fund legacy delivery models.

  2. The MDF accountability shift. Vendors are tying market development funds to provable ROI.

  3. AI as the new operating layer. AI is reshaping productivity, pricing, and the customer relationship at once.

  4. Differentiation through proof. Buyers want evidence of outcomes, vertical depth, and operational transparency.

  5. Structural sales and marketing alignment. Most of the buying process happens before sales enters the conversation.

What's Inside the Report

  • By the Numbers: full-year 2025 HubSpot data from real channel portfolios, published next to the benchmark, including our own.

  • Market Drivers: what's shifting for VARs, OEMs, distributors, MSPs, and SIs.

  • The P.A.T.H. Framework: Purpose, Accountability, Technology, and Human, each with data, a client story, and quarterly moves.

  • Decision Tools: the 4-Quadrant Profit Matrix and the P.A.T.H. Scorecard.

  • For Your Role: plays for CEOs, CROs, marketing leaders, and service and ops leaders.

  • Your 90-Day Page: a 30-minute leadership agenda and worksheet to leave the meeting with three commitments and one shared number.

Who this Report is For

  • CEO + Owner. Build growth that doesn't depend on you, and a valuation story that survives your vacation.

  • CRO + Sales Leader. Build a forecast you can defend to the board, grounded in evidence.

  • Marketing Leader. Walk into the vendor QBR with revenue proof, and get found by the answer engines screening your buyers.

  • Service + Ops Leader. Win margin in delivery with a simpler portfolio and AI guardrails set before you scale.

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Section title

What is costing the prospect NOT to do business with you?

This is the stakes section. Use language that helps them visualize or remember what’s in stake here and what failure looks like.

This is the stakes section. Use language that helps them visualize or remember what’s in stake here and what failure looks like. This is the stakes section. Use language that helps them visualize or remember what’s in stake here and what failure looks like.

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Elizabeth Harrison | Business Role

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Elizabeth Harrison | Business Role

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