TD SYNNEX has announced the launch of a new fraud defense solution integrating Microsoft Azure services for small and medium business (SMB) customers during a time of increasing threats within cloud environments. The SMB Fraud Defense Click-to-Run solution elevates security postures and reduces potential risks in day-to-day cloud operations through phishing prevention, proactive alerts, warning signals and more. The solution integrates Microsoft Azure Active Directory, now part of Microsoft Entra, empowering them to enforce conditional access policies to help organizations better control how users access corporate resources. It also enables organizations to take advantage of Azure built-in cost management features.

"Microsoft offers robust security measures as part of their products," said Ed Morales, global vice president of security and high-growth business development, TD SYNNEX. "However, this does require specific configuration and management for full effectiveness. To further protect partners and customers against cyberthreats, TD SYNNEX developed this simple to deploy preconfigured solution designed for SMB customers to help mitigate fraudulent attacks and elevate their Azure environment security posture. We have created a solution that leverages vendor native tooling to solve a real-world problem leveraging a practical approach equipping partners to provide their SMB customers with the first line of defense."

Cyber- and security threats are on the rise, with a 2022 cybersecurity benchmarking study unveiling that 29% of CEOs and CISOs and 40% of chief security officers admitted their organizations are unprepared for a rapidly changing threat landscape.

"Trust is a top priority for Microsoft," said Agnès Van de Walle, general manager of global solution partners, Microsoft. "We currently process more than 43 trillion security signals per day and, in just one year, helped customers block more than 70 billion threats, leveraging the unique skills of more than 8,500 experts supporting our threat intelligence community and customers. Cyberthreats continue to rise and as these bad actors become increasingly sophisticated, small and medium businesses especially need more advanced and intelligent solutions to defend against them."

Cybercrime is globally impacting organizations regardless of industry or company size. A 2022 KPMG survey found that 62% of companies in the Americas experienced a data breach or cyberincident in 2021. Additionally, according to IBM's 2022 Cost of a Data Breach report, the global average cost of a breach has reached an all-time high of $4.35 million and small businesses spend an average of $955,000 per attack to restore normal operations.

"This solution will allow us to easily create consistent security and cost baselines for our customers in Azure, which as an MSP of many customers that consume Azure services, is vital to us," said Steve Salmon, lead Azure architect, Managed 247. "Educating partners on the key benefits of cost management and conditional access will help prevent major issues for their customers in the future."

In other news, TD SYNNEX has released its inaugural Global Technology Ecosystem Benchmark Report, highlighting critical industry trends and opportunities for 2023 and beyond. The first global report of its kind, the TD SYNNEX Global Technology Ecosystem Benchmark Report follows regional industry benchmark studies in North America, Europe, Asia Pacific and Japan, and Latin America and the Caribbean.

The report reflects TD SYNNEX's role at the center of a global ecosystem connecting technology producers, resellers, service providers, systems integrators, industry specialists and end users.

"As a leading IT ecosystem distributor and solutions aggregator, we have an opportunity and responsibility to help our channel partners identify industry trends as they navigate relentless transformation and plan for strategic growth," said Sergio Farache, chief strategy officer, TD SYNNEX. "The Global Ecosystem Benchmark Report is an important milestone in defining and understanding what's happening in this globally connected IT ecosystem."

Building on the North American, European, Latin American and Caribbean and Asia Pacific and Japan regional benchmark studies, the Global Insights Report focuses on three fundamental factors for technology ecosystem businesses:

• Anticipating and meeting end-user technology expectations
• Effectively managing technology ecosystem business operations
• Technology ecosystem engagement, enrichment and enablement

The survey covered a range of topics from growth strategies and business challenges to customer needs and strategic investments, revealing five critical insights:

Insight 1: Globally, technology resellers' strategic growth plans prioritize entering new vertical markets. Additionally, increased ecosystem partnerships are likely to be integral in executing on this growth strategy.

Regulated verticals like financial services, government, education, health care and ESG are all expected to increase in importance over three years. Gaining the experience in these categories and delivering the technology solutions requires expertise that is hard to scale, which means partnerships can close functional gaps to deliver desired outcomes.

Insight 2: Resellers are putting their investments in people to drive the outcomes customers want most.

The largest categories of reseller business investments are directly linked to acquiring skills, certification and expertise. More than three-quarters of resellers globally are prioritizing budgets to increase knowledge in technical and business solutions areas customers frequently request, including managed services, security networking, professional services, servers and storage, and hybrid cloud, among others.

Insight 3: Resellers are shifting resources to expand their cloud portfolios.

When viewed as a single category, cloud solutions (cloud deployment, cloud integration, multicloud management and others) eclipse all other technology solutions resellers conveyed that they plan to offer in the next 24 months, according to the Global Benchmark Report. Other top responses have a clear tie to cloud priorities (device as a service, digital transformation, IoT, security) making cloud solutions fundamental to global resellers' portfolios of offerings.

Insight 4: Global resellers are consumed by as-a-service.

The near total adoption of as-a-service consumption models resellers plan over the next two years is a short leap in logic from reseller's responsiveness to customers' technology solutions needs and the intended expansion of cloud offerings. Customers have always indicated they want flexibility when it comes to payment terms. The trend toward OpEx and consumption-based IT means a larger portion of resellers' business is likely to come from recurring revenue.

Insight 5: ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) and the AR/VR market are potential missed opportunities for resellers.

In contrast to the emphasis on skills acquisition, portfolio expansion and efforts to enter new vertical markets, sustainability and emerging technology are low on the priority list for solution development and business investment.

In different capacities, ESG and AR/VR solutions are both opportunities for global resellers.

Effective ESG programs allow organizations to respond to partner and customer questions about sustainable practices and diversity, as well as comply with supplier codes of conduct, while some analysts forecast an AR/VR market opportunity of $800 billion by 2024, where 50% of that revenue is associated to technology platforms and hardware.

In partnership with Canalys, TD SYNNEX surveyed approximately 300 mid-size technology ecosystem partners across North and South America, Europe and Asia Pacific countries. Mid-size technology ecosystem partner is defined as 1,000 seats and below. Fieldwork for the Global Insights Report was conducted between July and October 2022.

The full TD SYNNEX Global IT Ecosystem Benchmark Report, including an executive summary, is available for download.