In this article 6 sections
A panel ahead of IT Nation Connect Europe
Dan Scott, senior director of the IT Nation Community in Europe at ConnectWise, hosts this live panel ahead of IT Nation Connect Europe 2026 in London. The panellists are Mit Patel, CEO of Assurix, Heather MacDonald Alford, a director at a finance firm that specialises in MSPs, and Raja Pagadala, who ran an MSP in central London from 1987 to 2023. They cover what MSP owners are talking about: value, AI, security, marketing, time and community.
Mit says Assurix works with about 90 MSPs and that he has been in the MSP community for over 22 years. He had spoken to more than 50 MSPs in the 3 days before recording.
The value shift
Mit’s first theme is value. Things don’t break as often as they used to, yet most MSPs built their businesses on fast response. Many people now fix their own problems with tools like ChatGPT. If an MSP’s only value is fast, proactive support, that will change. MSPs need to work out what customers value and add to it. On AI, he suggests starting small. Teach clients how to use AI and prompt better before trying to sell large AI services.
Heather sees MSPs paying more attention to profitability, which exposes where operations are not mature. Raja lists AI inside MSPs and in clients’ boardrooms, cyber security, winning and keeping clients, and growing interest in exit strategy and business value.
Security fatigue and governance
Mit says AI has made malicious activity easier than ever. Clients are tired of being told one more product will fix one more problem. The SME cares about the outcome: being safe, and the MSP doing what it should. He adds that most MSPs don’t check that their security work gets done properly, for clients or internally. They have no governance rhythm to test whether it works. With rising threats, his worry is that this will bite someone.
Heather, speaking as an MSP’s customer herself, says she wouldn’t engage an MSP that couldn’t show it takes its own security seriously. She sees more MSPs going for Cyber Essentials Plus or ISO and announcing it. Raja compares security complacency to the old pattern where the people who paid attention to backup were the ones who had lost data.
Marketing and time
Mit sees MSPs drop a marketing activity after 30 days if it hasn’t worked. His acronym KODI stands for “keep on doing it”. He suggests spending 80% of the marketing budget on what is known to work and 20% on experiments. The caveat is profit. Don’t spend money you don’t have. Heather says the hesitation is often driven by fear, and that teams who don’t track time hide where effort is wasted.
On the owner’s own time, Mit suggests scheduled blocks in the calendar for strategic thinking, and a new idea he was about to try: a “not to-do list” of things he should stop doing. Raja’s view is that “the only thing you can manage is actually priorities”. Work out the priorities, plan around them and stick to them.
Why events matter
Raja says the connections made at events, including the evening conversations, matter more than the content. Heather, at her first IT Nation the year before, found both strong. Mit describes running an MSP as lonely, but “a lot less lonely when you have other people that are going through the same stuff”. He warns against coming home with 10 to 20 ideas. Pick one and make that change. The panel also advises bringing the team, so ideas are heard first-hand, not passed on second-hand.
Common questions
Why does Mit think MSP value is shifting?
Things break less often and many users now fix their own problems with AI tools. MSPs whose value rests on fast support need to find what customers value now and add to it.
What is KODI?
Mit’s acronym for “keep on doing it”. MSPs often stop a marketing activity after 30 days. He argues for consistency, with 80% of budget on what works and 20% on experiments.
What does Mit say MSPs miss on their own security?
Most don’t check that their security work gets done properly, and have no governance rhythm to test whether it is working.
How should an MSP owner get value from an event?
Mit suggests picking one idea from the many you bring home and making that change. The panel also suggests bringing team members so they hear the content first-hand.
What is the Assurix Trustmark?
The live trustmark for MSPs. Assurix independently assesses 59 controls: 40 security controls aligned to NCSC CAF 4.0 and 19 operational controls built for MSPs. Live-measured controls are checked every six hours and the rest on a set cycle. An Assurix assessor signs off. A failure left unfixed for 30 days suspends the Trustmark publicly.
