Manage Protect is returning to Next Level 2026, the Technology Service Provider (TSP) conference hosted by SMBiT Professionals on 23–24 July 2026 at the Western Sydney Convention Centre. For the Australian-owned business, which has supported the community since 2008, this year’s event lands at a moment the team sees as pivotal for the industry and for the way AI is brought to small and medium businesses.
Andrew Johnson, MD, Manage Protect said the scale and timing of the conference are what make it so important. “It’s a big conference, right? When you look at small to medium businesses and who’s serving them in the Australian and New Zealand landscape, SMBiT Pro really brings together a large cohort of those MSPs and those IT people who are delivering solutions into that space,” he said. “This year in particular, with everything that’s going on with AI and that’s just accelerating exponentially, it’s a key moment.”
He pointed to the scale of the opportunity the channel is being asked to serve. “We’ve just come back from PAX8 Beyond over in Salt Lake City and the biggest message is there’s 400 million small to medium businesses out there and they all need help with AI, and there’s 90,000 MSPs,” Andrew said. “It’s these guys who are really responsible for bringing AI and enabling AI into Australian, New Zealand small to medium businesses. That’s exciting.”
A community of SMBs helping SMBs
For Manage Protect, the value of SMBiT Professionals comes down to the community itself. Andrew said his own preference has always been to work with smaller businesses. “Personally, I love working with SMBs. I’ve done work in corporate, government, enterprise, but small to medium businesses are where you make a difference, you can actually help people,” he said. “Most of the MSPs that we work with, they’re small to medium businesses too. So they’re SMBs trying to help other SMBs.”
He said the conference is also a chance to lift the conversation beyond day-to-day delivery. “It’s probably a good opportunity for everybody to just take a step back and think about, okay, what are we all trying to achieve here? It’s about alignment as well as community,” Andrew said. “How do we achieve our goals collectively rather than just being individual sort of IT providers out there just trying to do it all themselves?”
AI is the next big change, and it must be done properly
Andrew was candid that AI is the defining shift for the sector, and that getting it right matters more than moving fast. “In AI, there’s a lot to be done, particularly around putting those guardrails up, doing the right implementations, the right sorts of AI orchestration tools,” he said. “The worst thing we can do as an industry is just throw AI into a broken process because it will amplify that.”
He sees this year’s timing as critical. “This year’s conference, from a timing perspective, is one of the most critical that I’ve ever seen,” Andrew said. “We’ve gone through that stage of bright shiny ball, these are all the things we can do, and I think we’re right at that point where we’re looking and going, we really need to do this properly because otherwise people are going to get hurt.”
Drawing on the company’s history of guiding partners through change, he framed AI as the latest in a series of industry shifts. “A lot of MSPs are being pushed to basically build the plane while they’re flying it,” Andrew said. “When the cloud came, we helped them move to the cloud. When cybersecurity reared its head and became a big issue, we worked together to put in place the right rigour and structures. This is the next change.”
Growth in service of the community
Andrew was open about how Manage Protect weighs up its investment in the conference each year, and where it lands. “Conference sits well with our growth goals as a business,” he said. “We’ve been around since 2008. We’re not looking to IPO, we’re not looking to sell out to a large Borg entity of some sort. Our goal is to keep growing so we can do more. We want to do more to help MSPs, we want to do more with the community.” As he put it simply, “the more we grow, the more we can help others.”
What attendees can expect from Manage Protect
Andrew said the conference is a chance to reconnect with long-standing partners and to have the conversations that are hard to make time for otherwise, particularly around AI. “Ultimately, AI is all about trust. And people in the SMB space, they buy from people they trust,” he said. He added that attending is part of a bigger commitment: “Showing up for conferences, for us, is kind of showing up for the community as well.”
He said partners can also expect a global view brought home to the local market. “They can expect some really quality time to discuss what we’re seeing happening in the environment with AI, what we’re seeing on a global scale,” Andrew said, pointing to the time the team spends with global vendors understanding what is happening in the US and Europe and translating it for Australian and New Zealand businesses.
Yes, with an if
Claire Walker, who leads marketing at Manage Protect, said the team’s approach to AI conversations is about enabling partners rather than holding them back. “There’s an element of not wanting to be a Department of No, and not saying to your customers, don’t do this,” she said. “You want to say yes with an if. And have that “if’” sorted out before you have those conversations.”
She said the conference is also where she gets to hear directly from the people Manage Protect serves. “What people can expect from me is a lot of questions. How are they going? What are their challenges? I want to listen,” Claire said. “I love being able to directly talk to partners and ask them my annoying questions and listen to how they’re going and what they’re trying to do and what their challenges are.”
And for anyone who visited the Manage Protect stand last year, there is good news. “We are going to have another pinball machine,” Claire confirmed, promising “some robust competition” and a good prize for 2026.
Registrations for Next Level 2026 are open now.
For tickets, the full agenda, and sponsorship details, visit https://nextlevel.smbitpro.org/.