Telecom Reseller / Technology Reseller News

“We connect, we communicate and we automate.”

In this Technology Reseller News podcast, Doug Derstine, President and CEO of NetCarrier, discusses his new role, the company’s thirty-plus-year communications heritage and how NetCarrier is extending that foundation into AI and business process automation.

Derstine says what attracted him to NetCarrier was the strength of what was already in place: an established customer base, long-standing partner relationships, proprietary technology and an experienced team.

“You can’t easily replicate thirty years of experience,” Derstine says.

The opportunity now is to combine that communications foundation with newer technologies.

NetCarrier describes its evolving strategy around three areas: Connect, Communicate and Automate.

Connect represents the company’s network and connectivity services. Communicate includes UCaaS, contact center and messaging. Automate brings AI and intelligent workflow capabilities into the portfolio.

At the center of that automation strategy is ConnectSmart, NetCarrier’s agentic AI voice offering.

Derstine says the objective is not to add AI simply because it is fashionable. Instead, the focus is on solving specific customer problems such as missed calls, repetitive manual tasks, inefficient routing and inconsistent follow-up.

“We’re not looking to replace people,” Derstine says. “We’re looking to replace repetitive tasks.”

That approach can help businesses free employees to concentrate on work requiring judgment, expertise and empathy while automation handles more predictable processes.

For channel partners, Derstine says the opportunity is equally important.

NetCarrier wants partners to take these new capabilities to their own customers while continuing to rely on the company for communications infrastructure, technology and support.

The goal, he says, is for NetCarrier to become an integral part of both the partner’s business and the customer experience.

Visit NetCarrier.com to learn more about its services and partner opportunities.

By Doug Green

“Clear out those closets. There is risk sitting there, but there may also be value.”

In this special Technology Reseller News and ITAD Association podcast, Sarkes Mrkdichian of TechBros discusses why enterprises, MSPs and public-sector organizations need to think about IT asset disposition as more than simply getting rid of old equipment.

TechBros is a full-service ITAD and recycling company handling end-of-life networking equipment, servers, laptops, desktops and other technology assets.

Mrkdichian says the modern ITAD conversation now includes three major issues: data security, sustainability and asset recovery.

Equipment left sitting in storage rooms, closets or unused cubicles can create risk long after an organization believes it has been retired.

“You don’t know who is walking in and out of that room,” Mrkdichian says.

At the same time, those assets continue to depreciate.

That creates what amounts to an unrealized cost of disposal: organizations may be carrying data risk while also watching potentially valuable equipment lose resale value.

Certified ITAD providers can help address both problems.

Mrkdichian says certifications, documented chain of custody and verifiable sanitization or destruction provide organizations with evidence showing what happened to each data-bearing asset from pickup through final disposition.

He also encourages customers to consider data sanitization before automatically choosing physical destruction.

Proper erasure can provide a documented record that data was removed while allowing usable equipment to return to the secondary market.

That can reduce electronic waste while recovering additional value for the customer.

For organizations that require destruction, TechBros can combine verified erasure with physical destruction, creating an additional layer of assurance.

The issue is particularly important for enterprises, governments, healthcare organizations and financial institutions that may tell customers and constituents their data is secure while overlooking what happens to devices at the end of their lifecycle.

Mrkdichian’s advice is straightforward: make ITAD part of the technology lifecycle rather than an afterthought.

He also encourages ITAD providers to remain engaged with customers throughout the year instead of appearing only when equipment needs to be removed.

“Be top of mind,” he says. “Build the relationship before the closet fills up.”

Visit TechBrosAZ.com to learn more.

By Doug Green

“The future is about getting paid for the outcome, not just the seat or the hour.”

In this Technology Reseller News podcast recorded at MSP Summit, Tarik Faouzi of CloudBlue discusses how MSPs can move beyond simply reselling AI and build new business models around measurable customer outcomes.

CloudBlue provides an operating platform for channel businesses, including distributors, MSPs, resellers and ISVs, with capabilities spanning catalog management, marketplaces, provisioning and monetization.

Faouzi says AI is pushing MSPs toward what he calls the managed outcome provider model.

Instead of charging only by seat, hour or traditional service unit, MSPs may increasingly package and price services around specific results.

That could include an outcome such as threat detection, automated customer engagement or another measurable business result.

But Faouzi says monetizing those outcomes requires more than a new sales pitch.

MSPs first need the catalog capabilities to create and bundle the offer. Then they need to understand what it actually costs to deliver.

With AI, that means monitoring compute, tokens and other consumption in real time.

“If you don’t know what the outcome is costing you, you can lose your margin very quickly,” Faouzi says.

That makes FinOps and commercial guardrails essential.

MSPs need the ability to meter consumption, monitor profitability and react when customer usage begins exceeding expectations. In some cases, that may mean adjusting pricing, alerting the customer or even stopping an activity before costs spiral.

Customer visibility is equally important.

Faouzi says many businesses remain hesitant about AI because they do not understand what they are consuming or what the final bill will look like.

MSPs can help by making usage and costs transparent while packaging variable AI consumption into offers customers can understand and budget for.

That may mean buying AI services based on tokens or compute while selling them as a predictable monthly package.

For MSPs, Faouzi sees a major opportunity.

By tying AI directly to measurable business outcomes, partners can demonstrate value more clearly and potentially build deeper, stickier customer relationships.

But getting there will require changes in how services are packaged, metered, priced and managed.

Visit CloudBlue.com to learn more.

By Doug Green

“How many endpoints could you add tomorrow without hiring anybody?”

In this Technology Reseller News podcast recorded at MSP Summit, Stephanie Benzik of NinjaOne discusses how MSPs can simplify operations, reduce tool sprawl and create more room for growth without automatically adding headcount.

NinjaOne is a unified IT operations platform serving MSPs and enterprise customers around the world.

Benzik says many MSPs are still operating with technology stacks assembled over years of incremental additions: one tool for remote support, another for RMM, another for MDM, vulnerability management, backup and more.

Each tool may solve a specific problem, but together they can create friction, risk and additional management overhead.

“Every login is another point of friction and another point of risk,” Benzik says.

That becomes especially important as MSPs try to grow.

If every new group of customers or endpoints requires another technician, margins can quickly come under pressure.

Benzik says NinjaOne is designed to help MSPs improve the ratio of endpoints to technicians by consolidating more of their day-to-day IT operations onto a common platform.

The result can be fewer tools, less swivel-chair management and more capacity for existing staff.

That extra capacity matters as MSPs begin evaluating new opportunities around AI, security and governance.

Benzik says one of the major themes she heard at MSP Summit was excitement around AI, mixed with some fatigue from the sheer volume of AI messaging.

Her advice is to begin with the operational foundation.

Look for manual processes, inefficient workflows and tribal knowledge that can be standardized or automated.

For smaller MSPs, that may mean reducing dependence on one technician who holds critical institutional knowledge. For larger providers, it can mean creating more consistent service delivery across thousands of endpoints.

The goal is not simply automation for its own sake.

It is creating enough operational bandwidth for employees to focus on more strategic work and for the MSP to add new services without constantly expanding headcount.

Visit NinjaOne.com to learn more.

By Doug Green

“Cybersecurity has to be part of every conversation now.”

At MSP Summit in Orlando, I sat down with Rick Mancinelli of C3 Complete to discuss two issues that were everywhere at the event: cybersecurity and artificial intelligence. Mancinelli’s message went beyond treating cybersecurity as simply another requirement MSPs and their customers have to meet. He sees cybersecurity as a business opportunity.

C3 Complete is a hybrid technology consulting group offering cloud, telecom, cybersecurity and managed services. Mancinelli says the company’s goal with partners is straightforward: “We aim to complete your portfolio, but not compete with it.” For MSPs and technology advisors, that means creating opportunities to capture more of a customer’s technology spend while adding services that customers increasingly need.

Cybersecurity moves from requirement to opportunity

Mancinelli says the security environment has changed dramatically.

“We’ve gone from just strict regulatory and compliance-related issues and basic defense to literally a 24/7 state of vigilance.”

MSPs themselves are increasingly attractive targets because they are custodians of their customers’ data and systems. “As a fellow MSP, I know,” Mancinelli said. “We are the custodians of our clients’ data. And so if we’re the soft spot, we’re not really doing our clients any favors.”

That creates a dual responsibility for MSPs. They have to secure their own operations while also helping customers build the layers of protection needed to address hacking, data leakage, privacy concerns and other threats. But Mancinelli argues that security should not be approached simply as another burden.

“We actually counsel our clients to think of it as a selling tool.”

Organizations bidding on government contracts or working with financial institutions and other regulated industries increasingly have to demonstrate that they meet specific cybersecurity requirements. Mancinelli pointed to frameworks and standards including CSF, SOC 2, ISO 27001 and CMMC. The result, he says, is a shift in the cybersecurity conversation from something organizations simply have to do to “a true opportunity both for fellow MSPs and for their clients.”

AI creates opportunity — and new exposure

The same combination of opportunity and risk is emerging around artificial intelligence. Mancinelli expects organizations of every size to increasingly use AI tools, whether as part of a company-wide initiative or through individual employees adopting tools such as ChatGPT and other generative AI platforms.

He compared the trend to the earlier era of shadow IT, when employees adopted their own applications and services outside the traditional IT organization.

“That’s happening today with AI,” he said.

That makes governance increasingly important. Mancinelli says companies need established frameworks, guardrails and policies defining how AI can be used safely and responsibly, particularly when employees may be working with customer information, proprietary material or other sensitive data. Without those safeguards, AI can create potential privacy problems, data leakage and other forms of exposure.

The opportunity for MSPs is therefore broader than simply helping customers deploy AI. It includes helping customers build the security and governance framework around that deployment.

An MSP working with MSPs

One of the differentiators Mancinelli emphasized is that C3 Complete understands the MSP market from direct experience.

“We’ve been in their shoes,” he said. “We have a small MSP practice ourselves. So we understand the challenges, the ups and downs, the evolving landscape that we’re all faced with today.”

That experience shapes how C3 Complete works with partners. “We’re happy to share what we’ve learned. We’re happy to learn from them as well. And we really do look to form true partnerships.”

For MSPs, the convergence of cybersecurity and AI presents both new responsibilities and new sources of opportunity. Customers need help protecting themselves, navigating compliance requirements, adopting AI safely and creating policies around technologies employees may already be using. Companies that can help customers manage those issues may find that cybersecurity and AI are no longer simply technology conversations. They are increasingly business conversations.

Learn more about C3 Complete at c3-complete.com.

By Doug Green

“People buy from people they like and they trust, and that hasn’t changed.”

At MSP Summit 2026, I sat down with Tim Mandell of Leaseweb to talk about what he was hearing from MSPs at the event and why relationships, trust and flexibility remain central to the channel, even as conversations increasingly focus on AI, infrastructure, data privacy and data sovereignty.

Mandell said one of the things that stood out at the conference was how much of the discussion came back to relationship building. Rather than simply trying to sell one another products, companies are looking for ways to determine where each partner fits and how they can work together to solve customer problems.

“We have to make the connections and we have to solve problems and we’re all better together in this,” Mandell said. He added that Leaseweb has been encouraging its sales organization to build relationships first, with the expectation that business will follow.

For Mandell, the fundamentals of the technology business have not changed.

“People buy from people they like and they trust, and that hasn’t changed.”

That trust becomes particularly important for MSP customers that depend on technology but may not have deep technical expertise themselves. Those organizations ultimately have to trust someone to manage important parts of their business, from infrastructure to data privacy, sovereignty and compliance.

The same issue is becoming increasingly important as customers begin their AI journeys. Mandell noted that many organizations know they need to move forward with AI but may not yet know exactly what they need, particularly in a market where technology and requirements continue to change rapidly.

“To be a trusted advisor, you have to first do one thing and that’s listen,” Mandell said. “The rules haven’t even been written for half of this stuff right now. And what we think we need today may change tomorrow.”

That makes being nimble an important part of the MSP opportunity.

Mandell said Leaseweb’s approach is to allow MSPs to build their businesses as their customers grow rather than forcing them to build infrastructure in advance and hope they can fill it. Leaseweb provides the infrastructure and resources while allowing MSPs to make their own technology choices and expand as customer requirements develop.

He also pointed to privacy and data sovereignty as important elements of the Leaseweb proposition. Because customer needs can vary significantly, Mandell said the company can make decisions around individual requirements rather than forcing every customer into the same model.

Leaseweb also operates in a market populated by some of the largest technology companies in the world. Mandell said one of Leaseweb’s key differentiators is its ability to provide significant infrastructure capabilities while maintaining direct human relationships with customers.

“We do darn near everything that those companies can provide you, but guess what? You get to talk to me, and you get to talk to a person,” Mandell said.

That human connection is especially important in the MSP market because MSPs are placing one of their most important assets — their customer relationships — in the hands of their technology partners. Mandell said Leaseweb understands the responsibility that comes with that trust.

“The most important thing an MSP has is their customer base,” Mandell said. Allowing Leaseweb to help support those customers is “a gift that people give us and something we take very seriously and we consider precious.”

The partnership opportunity can also work in both directions. Mandell said Leaseweb regularly receives requests for services that fall outside its own core capabilities, including certain managed services, cybersecurity offerings and database management. In those cases, Leaseweb can bring an MSP partner into the opportunity, allowing both companies to support the same end customer.

The larger message from MSP Summit is that technology partnerships do not have to begin with a product sale.

They can begin with listening, trust and a shared customer problem.

Learn more at Leaseweb.com.

By Doug Green

“The resources an MSP needs at $1 million are different from what it needs at $20 million or $100 million.”

In this Technology Reseller News podcast recorded at MSP Summit, Paul Daigle of MSP Business Growth Marketplace discusses a new resource designed to help MSP owners find the business expertise they need at different stages of growth.

Daigle says MSPs have no shortage of technology vendors, but building a scalable company requires much more than products and services.

MSP Business Growth Marketplace organizes resources around eight operational areas: sales, marketing, legal, capital, CPA, human resources, employee development, and services and delivery.

The key difference, Daigle says, is that recommendations are aligned to the MSP’s revenue level.

A $500,000 MSP may need a very different marketing agency, CPA or legal adviser than a $10 million or $30 million provider.

That can become increasingly important as an MSP grows, prepares to acquire another company, raises capital or begins thinking about an eventual exit.

“You can outgrow the advisers who were perfect for you when you were smaller,” Daigle says.

The marketplace is intended to reduce the time MSP owners spend searching for the right resources.

Users identify their revenue level and can then access providers and guidance matched to the needs of businesses at that stage.

Daigle says the model grew out of his work with MSPs through Biz Advisory Board, where owners repeatedly asked for recommendations around areas such as sales, marketing, accounting, legal services and M&A preparation.

For MSP owners, the larger message is that growth requires attention to the entire business.

A provider may have an excellent technology stack, but it still needs the right financial, legal, people and go-to-market infrastructure to scale successfully.

The MSP Business Growth Marketplace is available as a free resource and also includes industry news and content intended for MSP owners and executives.

Visit MSPBusinessGrowthMarketplace.com to learn more.

By Doug Green

“We’re building an intelligence layer between the salesperson’s inbox and the CRM.”

In this Technology Reseller News podcast recorded at MSP Summit, Madhu Korepu of Zuuz explains the technology behind the company’s AI platform and how it helps MSPs uncover sales opportunities that may otherwise remain buried in email and other communications.

Zuuz is designed to connect with multiple sources of customer interaction, including email, LinkedIn, chat and call transcripts, then identify conversations that may represent leads, follow-ups or active opportunities.

Korepu says one of the biggest problems for sales teams is the amount of manual work required to keep CRM systems current.

Important conversations can take place without ever being entered into the CRM, leaving potential revenue effectively invisible.

Zuuz uses AI agents and its own models to analyze those communications and identify where salespeople should focus their attention.

The platform then presents those opportunities through a dashboard and can also send daily notifications highlighting leads requiring action.

For users who do not want to continually open another application, Zuuz can also make information available conversationally through AI interfaces.

“You don’t necessarily have to open the dashboard,” Korepu says. “You can ask the agent what you need to focus on.”

Deployment is designed to be straightforward.

Zuuz is delivered as a SaaS platform and, according to Korepu, can typically be connected and producing results within hours. An on-premises option is also available for organizations with stricter infrastructure or security requirements.

Korepu says the platform processes customer communications without retaining the underlying emails, while extracting the information needed to identify the opportunity, its stage and potential value.

For MSPs, the proposition is to use AI as a complement to the sales team rather than as a replacement.

By identifying missed follow-ups and underdeveloped opportunities, Zuuz aims to give salespeople back time while helping them concentrate on the conversations most likely to produce revenue.

Visit Zuuz.ai to learn more.

By Doug Green

“Focus on the biggest business problem first, then ask where AI can actually improve the outcome.”

In this Technology Reseller News podcast, Ahmed Mahmood of Ocean Solutions discusses how MSPs can use AI more strategically by starting with business problems rather than technology.

Ocean Solutions is a Washington, D.C.-area MSP serving highly regulated industries, including government contractors, nonprofits, financial services and healthcare.

Mahmood says the company works heavily around compliance requirements such as CMMC, PCI, GDPR, SOC 2 and HIPAA.

That experience shapes his view of AI.

He says many business leaders are still approaching AI as a new technology they feel obligated to adopt rather than as a tool for improving a specific business outcome.

His recommendation is to start with the problem creating the most pain.

That might mean revenue leakage, slow processes, high costs, frustrated customers or inefficient internal workflows.

Then break that problem into smaller pieces and determine where AI can help.

“Learn and walk your way up one problem at a time,” Mahmood says.

For MSPs, that approach also changes the customer conversation.

Mahmood says AI is increasingly bringing MSPs into discussions with CEOs, CFOs, COOs and boards rather than limiting them to conversations with IT staff.

That means technical expertise alone is not enough.

MSPs need to understand how customers make money, where they lose business, how they acquire customers, how they operate and what challenges are affecting growth.

Mahmood suggests using AI itself to help build that understanding.

An MSP can take its ideal customer profile, combine it with the right prompts and use AI to learn more about the economics, workflows and challenges within a customer’s industry.

That allows the MSP to enter the conversation speaking the language of the business rather than only the language of technology.

“If you’re sitting there purely technical, you’re going to become less relevant,” Mahmood says.

Ocean Solutions also operates an AI Academy offering bootcamps and training around AI and related technologies.

Visit OceanSLS.com to learn more.

By Doug Green

“Customers may be asking for AI, but MSPs also need to ask whether the network is ready for it.”

In this Technology Reseller News podcast recorded at MSP Summit, Nicole Kerns of Verizon Business discusses how AI adoption, SD-WAN and multi-carrier connectivity are creating new opportunities for MSPs.

Kerns says many businesses are moving quickly to adopt AI without fully considering what those applications may do to network performance, bandwidth requirements and security.

That gives MSPs an opening to broaden the conversation.

Instead of simply helping a customer deploy an AI application, the MSP can assess whether the underlying network is prepared to support increased upload and download traffic, new security requirements and mission-critical applications.

Kerns says SD-WAN can play an increasingly important role.

Traditional failover may protect a business when a primary circuit goes down, but it may still create interruptions for services such as VoIP.

With SD-WAN, MSPs can manage traffic dynamically across multiple connections and prioritize the applications that matter most.

“Make sure your mission-critical traffic gets through first,” Kerns says.

She also points to multi-carrier connectivity as an important part of that strategy.

Combining landline and cellular connections can give businesses additional resilience when a wired connection fails or when available bandwidth is insufficient.

For MSPs, that can create an upsell opportunity.

A customer asking about AI may actually need a broader conversation about connectivity, traffic management, segmentation, security and redundancy.

Kerns also stresses that businesses should approach AI at an enterprise level, with security teams involved and employees educated about what information should and should not be shared with AI platforms.

Verizon Business works with channel partners through its resale programs, including connectivity, IoT and fixed wireless access offerings.

Visit Verizon Business to learn more about its partner and connectivity programs.