Compliance isn’t a tick-box exercise—it’s becoming a defining factor in how businesses build trust, operate securely, and deliver services in increasingly regulated markets. For channel partners, the opportunity is twofold: support customers through complexity, and differentiate with practical, proactive compliance strategies.

At Climb, we work with a diverse ecosystem of vendors across cybersecurity, virtualisation and cloud, data protection, Artificial Intelligence and more. Each plays a role in helping partners address compliance challenges—not just by meeting requirements, but by building stronger, more secure offerings.

We spoke with several of our vendors to explore how compliance is evolving, what tools and tactics partners should prioritise, and how regulations like NIS2, PCI DSS v4.0, and the EU AI Act are shaping security priorities. Here’s what we learned.

Compliance as Competitive Advantage

One of the biggest concerns we hear from channel partners, especially smaller resellers and MSPs, is how to keep up with compliance requirements without overwhelming their teams or their customers. Fortunately, many of the fundamentals of compliance are consistent, and smart strategies can go a long way.

Vercara notes that while new regulations often appear complex, they usually refine existing best practices. By building security programmes around flexible frameworks like ISO 27001 and tailoring them to customer needs—such as securing personally identifiable information—partners can avoid reinventing the wheel each time a new regulation comes along.

AlgoSec points out that smaller partners often have an agility advantage. With the right automation in place, and a focus on application-centric security, they can deliver compliance in ways that are highly customised and responsive to customer needs—something many larger providers can’t match.

Tools like HCL’s BigFix help scale that capability, automating compliance checks, patching, and configuration across infrastructure. That means less manual effort and more time spent delivering real value.

ManageEngine contributes to this streamlining and efficiency, too, offering centralised tools that cover everything from privileged access management to Active Directory reporting and log analysis, making it easier for partners to build a complete, auditable compliance posture without a large in-house team.

What Regulations Are Really Asking For

Much of the current regulatory attention is focused on NIS2, DORA, and the EU AI Act. While these frameworks differ, they share common themes: accountability, resilience, and a need for visibility that spans infrastructure, applications, and data.

AlgoSec’s business-driven approach to network security policy management is designed to support this. By taking an application-first approach and automating segmentation and access controls, partners can meet NIS2 requirements while also aligning security policies to how their customers actually operate.

For DORA, HCL BigFix offers real-time monitoring and automated remediation across endpoints, enabling fast, consistent responses to incidents and helping financial services partners meet regulatory expectations around operational resilience.

And when it comes to the EU AI Act, the message from vendors is clear: know your systems, classify your risks, and ensure transparency from development through to deployment. Tools like HCL AppScan and ManageEngine Log360 support this through secure software development practices, compliance mapping, and anomaly or vulnerability detection, helping partners and their customers implement AI securely and responsibly.

Ultimately, these regulations aren’t asking for a perfect system. They’re asking for evidence of visibility and control—and for the ability to adapt as new risks and requirements emerge.

Automation and AI

For partners delivering continuous compliance, automation provides consistency and visibility, enabling partners to scale securely, manage complexity, and respond to threats in real time.

Vercara integrates AI within its UltraDDoS Protect and DNS Health Check tools to identify and block attacks automatically, helping partners meet both compliance requirements and customer uptime expectations.

ManageEngine leverages AI for behavioural analytics, using tools like Log360 to flag unusual activity and streamline investigations. This allows for faster detection, fewer false positives, and more reliable compliance reporting.

HCL BigFix continuously monitors endpoints and enforces policies across large environments—ensuring that systems stay patched, secure, and audit-ready. It’s automation that goes beyond efficiency and supports meaningful, provable assurance.

What’s Next for Partners

Ask any partner what’s changed in compliance, and you’ll hear the same word crop up again and again: continuity. One-and-done audits are being replaced with clear visibility, traceability, and a strong sense of responsibility across systems and suppliers.

ManageEngine sees rising demand for tools that consolidate compliance oversight, helping partners to manage identity, access, device hygiene, and data protection through a single interface.

When compliance becomes part of the partner offering, it unlocks new value—enabling trusted relationships and smarter service delivery.

#TheClimbWay

At Climb, we’re proud to partner with vendors who bring practical, proven compliance solutions to the channel. Thanks to our in-house expertise, we can help partners understand how these solutions fit together, and how to apply them to real-world customer challenges.

That’s #TheClimbWay: insight-led, partner-first, and guided by the latest trends and technology. Whether you’re tackling a specific framework or looking to embed compliance support across your services, we’re here to help you do it with confidence—and with the backing of a powerful vendor network behind you.

If you’re looking for more information about how our Climb team can best support your company’s compliance needs, whether it’s to do with upcoming EU regulations or even questions around AI, be sure to get in touch with us directly here.

Learn more about any of the vendors included in this blog below