From Insight to Opportunity: How SMB Service Demand is Shaping the Next Growth Wave for Partners

"Distribution, Done Differently" is Crayon’s commitment to exploring creative solutions that help partners respond to customers’ evolving needs to drive service-led growth. The challenge? Leveraging on market data in an ever-changing landscape.   

Listening to the Signals 

Since 2021, the Future of Operations study series – commissioned by Crayon and conducted by Forrester Consulting – has tracked the growing demand for external IT expertise among small and medium businesses across APAC. Data insights drawn from the studies are used to validate new through-partner service offerings, ensuring they align directly with SMB needs and investment priorities.  

The most recent 2025 study shows clear shifts in how SMBs are setting priorities: 

• Business Objectives: 80% of SMBs say improving customer experience is critical. 67% want to reduce enterprise risk. 64% seek more flexible and scalable ways of working. 
• IT Objectives: From bolstering cybersecurity posture and AI readiness, to improving cloud reliability and reducing cost-to-serve — IT teams are responding to new pressures. 
• Planned Investments: SMBs are actively planning to invest in cloud ERP, managed security, cloud strategy development, AI-ready infrastructure, and modern work tools. 

What ties these findings together is speed. SMBs are moving quickly to adapt—but they cannot do it alone. Demonstrating clear business value from technology adoption is becoming more complex, and transactional partnership models no longer suffice. To succeed, SMBs need trusted service partners who can guide them through implementation and ensure technology delivers measurable outcomes. 

That is precisely where Crayon and its partner ecosystem step in: providing the expertise, strategy, and services SMBs need to translate digital investments into real business value. 

Distribution, Done Differently: Capitalizing on Market Opportunity Through Services 

Sustainable IT business models cannot be built on software licenses alone. The market demands more—and partners who expand into services unlock additional revenue, increase customer stickiness, and create new competitive advantages. 

Every Crayon partner service is built to deliver two outcomes that directly impact the partner’s bottom line: 

1. A pathway to deliver services aligned with customer objectives. 
2. A long-term, recurring revenue stream that helps customers win, retain, and grow accounts. 

Crayon didn’t just publish the Future of Operations – the company built around it. 

Crayon’s partner services are directly informed by the most urgent and high-growth areas of SMB demand. Offerings are mapped to where SMBs currently invest and their priorities over the next two years. 

The following shows how Crayon has aligned to insights drawn from the 2025 Future of Operations dataset: 

Beyond Capability: Why This Is a Strategic Growth Opportunity 

By aligning offers to real demand signals, partners are not just expanding their portfolio - they are positioning their business for strategic growth by:

Winning New Customers: Pitch aligned services that meet SMBs’ current priorities. Go beyond licensing to offer outcome-driven value that wins deals. 

Strengthening Existing Relationships: Use Crayon’s services to fill capacity or capability gaps in internal teams, cover new solution domains, or deepen service coverage for existing accounts. 

Unlocking Profitable New Revenue Streams: Many Crayon services are white-labelled and margin-rich. Whether it's recurring managed services or funded migration projects, the company helps create sustainable revenue. 

Saving Time and Overhead: Crayon has built, tested, and scaled these services so partners don’t have to. Enter new domains like cybersecurity or business apps without adding headcount or risk. 

Explore Crayon's services portfolio or talk to Crayon about how they can help match offers to emerging SMB service demand - and grow with confidence.