The Trump Administration is making big changes faster than any other modern president. The movement of many kinds of levers — tariffs, buyout packages, government layoffs, and more are disrupting the status quo, and the effects will affect tech companies and enterprise chief information officers.
Like the pandemic, the extreme and rapid changes require extreme organizational agility, Monte Carlo simulations, an open mind, and a CIO unafraid to lead. As with all major changes, organizations need to have a strong vision and the ability to execute it within the context of changing circumstances.
Organizations Will Depend More on MSPs
Jonathan Lerner, president and CEO at MSP InterVision Systems, believes deregulation will create a lot of confusion.
“It’s about your customers, the people you work with every day, who are going to have a lot of questions right now,” says Lerner. “Small business owners, CIOs and people just trying to keep their systems running smoothly will be asking their MSPs, ‘How does this affect my data, network security, and software updates? How will I continue to innovate and better serve in a period of uncertainty?’ In this business, our job is to simply provide stable, reliable business solutions, and these kinds of rapid changes make that harder.”
InterVision Systems will focus on strengthening its security and compliance expertise to stay a step ahead. Lerner says his company will be spending a lot of time helping its customers understand the new rules and how to adapt to them.
.jpg?width=700&auto=webp&quality=80&disable=upscale "InterVision_Lerner-Jonathan_(002).jpg")
Jonathan Lerner, InterVision Systems
Jonathan Lerner, InterVision Systems
“We’re going to have to be flexible, focusing on sustaining strong relationships, listening to our customers and providing clear, practical advice focused on outcomes to drive their strategy,” says Lerner. “I hope this leads to less red tape so that businesses can thrive. But, in the meantime, my advice to anyone in our field, especially MSPs, is to be prepared to become a guide.”
Businesses Will Also Turn to Consultants
Jenny Rae Le Roux, CEO at consulting industry news publisher and business skills training company Management Consulted, says while there are always economic winners and losers, the consulting industry is “the canary in the coal mine” for who is who.
“Outsized demand for services from one sector [or] function usually indicates robust growth or big challenges in the broader economy,” says Le Roux. “The sectors that will grow in 2025 [are] supply chain, healthcare, and cloud services. The losers [will be] businesses that focus on DEI, ESG, and federal government consulting work.”
There is also a strategic shift occurring among clients that is driving demand for more consulting assistance.
Jenny Rae Le Roux, Management Consulted
Jenny Rae Le Roux, Management Consulted
“2025 is bringing with it a reordering of traditional business cycles. Typically, firms think about macro business cycles in eight-year increments. The first four years are focused on growth, and the second four years are focused on cost optimization,” says Le Roux. “As AI and trade policy transform the way the world does business, clients are now asking firms to help them deliver on a dual mandate: Drive growth and optimization simultaneously. This is a meaningful driver of increased demand for consulting services.”
Data Security Will Remain a Priority
Arnaud Treps, CISO at Salesforce data security platform Odaseva, expects that some companies will find themselves unprepared for policy changes and will be forced to scramble to catch up.
“Organizations that aren’t proactive or are incapable of rapidly pivoting in the face of shifting regulatory environments will suffer,” says Treps. “Regardless of changes in regulations, policy, or administrations, underlying security challenges remain. Even if there are fewer regulatory requirements, security threats don’t just disappear if the regulations do. As a result, data security investments will be driven more by business needs rather than investing in security just because regulations require companies to do so.”
Odaseva is encouraging its customers to implement the strongest security and management capabilities, so that regulatory or policy changes don’t require exponential or rapid scaling up of data security and management approaches.
“We will carefully monitor policy changes and identify trends, while continuing to offer products and services to our customers that allow them to independently secure their data at the highest level and achieve agility so they can pivot as necessary based on policy and/or geopolitical changes,” says Treps.
Of course, it’s unclear where regulations, policy, and geopolitics are headed in the short term and long term.
.jpg?width=700&auto=webp&quality=80&disable=upscale "Arnaud_(002).jpg")
Arnaud Treps, Odaseva
Arnaud Treps, Odaseva
“Securing and managing SaaS data is the most important thing you can do in the face of regulatory uncertainty,” says Treps. “Understanding your data model and how employees, third parties, fourth parties, and customers all interact with it puts you in the best possible position to navigate regulatory changes as they emerge.”
Accessibility Will Suffer
Josh Miller, co-CEO at media accessibility company 3Play Media, the leader in media accessibility says with the Trump administration’s focus on abolishing DEI and a suit filed by 17 states against Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, there is obvious risk to the accessibility space.
“As a vendor that provides accessibility services, we are close to the impact on people with disabilities, vendors that provide accessibility services [and] businesses that have prioritized accessibility and are now questioning whether they still should or need to,” says Miller. “Ultimately, it would be naive to think that the current political climate won’t have a negative impact on accessibility. Some businesses will deprioritize making their websites, products and spaces accessible.”
Federal enforcement of accessibility law may wane, but individual or independent litigation and state enforcement will persist. People with disabilities will continue to fight for their right to access, and many organizations will continue to support them.
Miller says 3Play Media began pushing into the video localization space to expand its footprint beyond accessibility. In the accessibility space, the company plans to support Canadian and upcoming EU accessibility regulations under the European Accessibility Act (EAA), where enforcement is still a priority. It will also continue to support the many U.S. customers that prioritize compliance with accessibility laws, making sure their services are accessible to the millions of U.S. with disabilities.
Energy Companies Will Have Uneven Impacts
Chris Black, CEO at GridX says most of what happens in the electric and gas utility space is decided state by state. It’s both a blessing and a curse when selling to utilities companies because they answer to different state regulators with different objectives. This means his company is more subject to state-level decisions than national ones.
“Companies like GridX that work in the back-of-house operations of utilities are treated more like infrastructure investments than anything else. Utilities make decisions on 20-year cycles, not four-year political terms,” says Black. “When utilities invest in grid infrastructure, they’re planning for decades, which gives us some insulation from the political winds of the moment.”
However, not everyone in the utility tech space is so fortunate. Certain areas, such as residential energy-efficiency credits and offshore wind players, should have a plan B in place because they rely on federal support and are frequently tied to green messaging that may be less favored in the current climate.
“For companies traditionally emphasizing environmental benefits, you can still achieve the same positive impacts while shifting your communications to highlight cost savings and reliability,” says Black. “Getting people to shift their energy usage away from peak times aligns with clean energy and renewables goals, even if you’re not leading with an ‘environmental’ message.”
The biggest challenge will be prioritization. For example, a utility may have requests for $30 billion in infrastructure projects but can only fund $8 billion of it.
“Those tough choices will become even more critical, and companies that can demonstrate immediate economic value will be at an advantage. For those in areas that feel more vulnerable to administrative changes, now’s the time to focus on complementary offerings or pivot to aspects of your business that are less dependent on federal priorities,” says Black. “The fundamentals haven’t changed: Utilities must deliver reliable service and modernize aging infrastructure. Companies that help them do this more efficiently will continue to find opportunities, regardless of who’s in Washington. Just be prepared to frame your value in terms that resonate with the moment while staying true to your core mission.”
Bottom Line
Some CIOs will be harder hit than others by the changes the current administration is making. This has been true of any administration. However, the speed of change this time around is unprecedented, so organizations need to focus on, organizational agility partnering with consultants and vendors that can help them weather the shifts while meeting the demands of customers.