Channel Chatter: Six Tips from the Experts at Varnex
![Channel Chatter: Six Tips from the Experts at Varnex Channel Chatter: Six Tips from the Experts at Varnex](https://eu-images.contentstack.com/v3/assets/blt10e444bce2d36aa8/blt4a3b713036c97606/6524691ee5d5d971394fd520/What_You_Need_to_Know_0.jpg?width=700&auto=webp&quality=80&disable=upscale)
In the mind of Frank Vitagliano, vice president of Global Distribution Sales & Strategy at Dell, the channel’s biggest opportunity lies in hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI). The technology provides huge potential; IDC expects it to grow at 60 percent CAGR over the next four years to become a $4 billion industry by 2019. Vitagliano is excited because of Dell’s robust offerings in the space, citing partnerships with EMC, VMware and Nutanix.
Jeremiah Jenson, VP of AMS Channel for Hewlett-Packard Enterprise (HPE), says his team is focused on four megatrends: HCI, the data-driven enterprise, mobility and cybersecurity.
He doesn’t have a specific product in mind; rather, he sees opportunity for the channel in providing architecture that solves specific business problems. It’s the difference between selling products and providing business outcomes. A reseller may land a customer because of selling flash, for example, but savvy partners will seize the opportunity to upsell into the data center. By partnering with vendors, channel companies can represent the entire stack and leverage multiple points of entry to sell different solutions to the same customer.
Satisfactory solutions mean engaging more than one vendor these days, says Ford Pearse, vice president of Product Management-Lenovo for Synnex. Look at the education space for a prime example: Lenovo’s lineup there spans multiple form factors and can be managed with services such as Lightspeed.
There’s a white glove delivery service happening in education, he says, with streamlined server lineups, common core on the stack, HCI provided by Nutanix and variable cloud. True solutions to business problems are more complex and may involve more players, but they’re opportunities for the channel.
Cloud is the key component of the third platform, says Kirk Nesbit, vice president of Design & Support Services for Synnex. Resellers moving SMB customers to the cloud should keep their eyes out for other services they can offer such as Avaya.
For inspiration, he advises partners to look at trends in other sectors. The public sector, for example, is capturing data from body cameras and other IoT devices into Microsoft Azure. Whatever your service offering, he warns, too many partners leave security as the last component they consider. With every move, partners must be thinking how to protect the enterprise across the varied space of cloud, mobile and on premise.
Eddie Franklin, Synnex vice president of Public Sector, says too many people see the third platform, and the Internet of Things (IoT) in particular, as this nebulous concept that exists in some theoretical future. His advice? You have to define what value the IoT offers their company. Put it in terms they can understand.
For all its hype, the IoT is just using a device to perform a technological task, automating the process and then extracting relevant metrics. It’s technology your customers can monetize right now, and if you’re not offering IoT services, you’re on the wrong side of the equation, Franklin says. But the key is to think of it as a solution, not just a cool device. With that approach, resellers and service providers can expand the offering to include infrastructure, storage, backup, analytics and so forth to provide value throughout the entire ecosystem.
The overall theme, says Vitagliano, is to realize that the biggest value a channel partner can provide isn’t in specific technology, but in solutions that result in business transformation. That’s not an easy shift to make. With smaller resellers, major changes may be required in how you run your sales force and in your go-to- market strategy.
That’s where vendors can prove valuable. Dell’s investments in providing training and certifications, for example, are up 25 percent or more this year. Vendors realize their success is tied to partners successfully making that transition, and it’s having a profound impact on partner programs.
The overall theme, says Vitagliano, is to realize that the biggest value a channel partner can provide isn’t in specific technology, but in solutions that result in business transformation. That’s not an easy shift to make. With smaller resellers, major changes may be required in how you run your sales force and in your go-to- market strategy.
That’s where vendors can prove valuable. Dell’s investments in providing training and certifications, for example, are up 25 percent or more this year. Vendors realize their success is tied to partners successfully making that transition, and it’s having a profound impact on partner programs.
Day two of Varnex opened with a Channel Panel conversation that touched on the state of the channel, trends in solutions and the third platform. Here are the top six takeaways for partners.
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