Reactions Abound over Master Agent Rebranding Debate
The conversation about outdated language in the channel continues to stir up new ideas. But not everyone is happy about it.
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Brandon Knight, who leads Telarus‘ contact center practice agreed with the voices calling for a rebrand.
“The time has definitely come to make this change for several of the noted reasons. And frankly it seems the conversation is not whether to make the change or not,” he wrote on LinkedIn. “It’s really just ‘what’ to change the name too. So, we need to get together and agree on one of the many options and go with it!”
MicroCorp Senior Vice President of Sales Christopher Schubert stirred the pot on LinkedIn. He suggested “prime or premier distributor” as words that might fit better.
“At their worst, these terms [master agent] are evocative of a relationship not based on partnering, but rather one being subservient to the other,” Schubert wrote. “There is power in words, and these words not only do not reflect the reality of the relationship (current masters are very much there to serve our subagent partners), but they are hurtful to many in our community. We need to rethink what these roles are.”
Check out Schubert’s video post and its comment thread.
Plenty of people find this entire conversation unnecessary.
Mark Adams commented that the replacement term “Primary Agent” communicates essentially the same power dynamic as “Master Agent.”
“Should you wish to be politically correct then yes it should be changed. We sanitize things down to a generic term because it is to descriptive. Almost everything is looked and scrutinized under the lens of racism. Master Agent defines the agency holding all the contracts for other agencies. Not something of a dominant force subjugating all other agencies and consultants under them,” Adams wrote. “Political Correctness is alive and well in all industries including this one. If there is a change ‘Primary Agent’ is suggesting then that partners are lesser agencies or secondary agencies. If the Politically Correct want a change try something like ‘Holding Agency’ denoting they are holding all the contracts for those in the indirect channel.”
Many critics think industry is focusing too much on political correctness.
Charles N. Carter said that much in a comment.
“This is a media generated NONTROVERSY… nobody cares about the verbiage but the person who wrote this column. I have worked in this sector for 27 years and no a single person, company or agent has ever raised this topic or presented it as an issue. This is a great example of media manipulation of a story,” Carter wrote.
Apparently nobody cares, even the two dozen people interviewed for the article.
TCG Vice President of National Sales Kevin Zimmerman noted that his team rarely uses the word subagent when referring to sales partners.
He also argued that the master agent community needs to lead the charge, rather than vendors assuming responsibility.
“I believe this would be a very easy shift to make, and we need to be the stewards of change,” he said.
Zimmerman put forward the term “broker.”
“Brokerages exist for every good and service one can think of. I have an insurance broker, a security (stock) broker, but that’s almost archaic as well. They have now become financial advisors, not stock brokers of the past. Master implies control, right? A master switch that controls other components, a master panel for electricity, etc,” Zimmerman said. “The reality is that we don’t have any ‘control’ over our partners, and nor should we! I believe step by step we can ‘be the change we want to see’ and eliminate the verbiage. Happy to help lead the charge and assist in being a change agent alongside all of my brethren!”
Jay McBain, Forrester’s principal analysts of channels, partnerships and ecosystems, wrote on LinkedIn that parent/child relationships in what he calls “the decade of the ecosystem.”
“An ecosystem is celestial in nature where companies collaborate, deliver customer value creation, co-innovate, and leverage network effects. Said another way, everyone is visible to the customer – and their value must be demonstrated and understood,” McBain wrote. “No one hides in an ecosystem – and no one is the single trusted authority, the single throat to choke, or the single orchestrator of all activity. The trillions of moving parts all come together (and condense) to deliver business outcomes.”
JS Group CEO Janet Schijns made a couple of interesting points. She noted that partners may understandably take a longer time than expected. She said the rebranding produces requires an expenditure of resources.
“There are significant costs inherent in doing so for a partner from website refreshes, to search optimization spends, to physical branding efforts – all of which carry a steep cost for even the most simple name change,” Schijns wrote.
She called on the supplier side of the channel to help enable the change.
“This is where I believe the vendor/carrier community can come in and help by supporting one naming architecture, agreed to by the partners, and integrated in their programs; and then investing in the channel partners who need to make the change. From allowing rebranding submissions for MDF, to a special funding pool, to engaging the vendors DEI group for additional funding resources, there is much the vendors can, and should, do to aid the partners financially in this necessary transformation,” she said.
Schijns also addressed critics of the movement.
“I respectfully disagree with you – unless you have felt the continual sting of discrimination, the pain of being unfairly treated or singled out, or had your life or the life of someone you love impacted you can’t understand how it feels, nor should you try to impose your feelings on someone who has felt this pain,” she said. “Do not minimize these feelings in honor of yours, there is nothing to be gained in that.”
Zinfi Technologies Founder and CEO Sugata Sanyal left an interesting comment on McBain’s post.
“Distribution = Bank + Warehouse + Some Training + Some Marketing & Sales Support … We will see evolution of Venn diagrams that decouple each link. We are seeing that in the ISV space – Apple/Android/AppExchange, etc. As 3D printing goes nearshore and nano kicks in … distribution chain would get rewired – even in hardware. We are just getting started. Next decade in channel would be the place to be! Oh yea, one more thing – 5G!”
We quoted Craig Schlagbaum in the second part of our series. The Comcast Business senior vice president of indirect channels, weighed in with an additional comment on LinkedIn.
“Certainly debatable but commercially speaking, Distribution is one of the 4 P’s of Marketing (Product, Price, Promotion and Place). Place is what distribution is in any industry, and it is the same in telecom and services,” Schlagbaum wrote. “The Master Agent is the distribution mechanism or place where services sales are transacted by the channel. Keeping it simple (KISS) is always best, and my marketing professor always promoted that notion all the way back to the 80’s. Master Agents are simply Distributors of Services.”
We quoted Craig Schlagbaum in the second part of our series. The Comcast Business senior vice president of indirect channels, weighed in with an additional comment on LinkedIn.
“Certainly debatable but commercially speaking, Distribution is one of the 4 P’s of Marketing (Product, Price, Promotion and Place). Place is what distribution is in any industry, and it is the same in telecom and services,” Schlagbaum wrote. “The Master Agent is the distribution mechanism or place where services sales are transacted by the channel. Keeping it simple (KISS) is always best, and my marketing professor always promoted that notion all the way back to the 80’s. Master Agents are simply Distributors of Services.”
Partners are sharing their ideas – and pushback – over the movement to rebrand master agents.
The industry has been discussing this topic in some form or other over the last year, but the conversation took a more serious bent this month when Channel Futures posted its article “Do Master Agents Need a New Name?” The sources in the column agreed that “master agent” is at best an outdated term that doesn’t reflect the business model it tries to describe. At worst, it’s offensive.
Channel Futures followed that up with an exploration of the term “technology services distributor,” which many companies unsuccessfully tried to adopt a few years ago.
Then Eclipse Telecom CEO Dave Dyson dropped the mic in a column arguing for the retirement of the term master agent.
“Allow me to be a little less of all of those things and say the time to end the master/sub titles was 20 years ago. Each day that goes by where we still use these terms is one too many,” Dyson wrote. “I know I am taking what may seem like an incredibly controversial stance here, so let me take you through my rationale. (For the record, I have many controversial opinions: I am against cancer, in favor of puppies, and think that people could stand to be a little nicer to one another).”
Dyson invited LinkedIn followers to share their thoughts with him, and multiple partners chimed in. You can click on the picture to view Dyson’s comment thread.
Source: LinkedIn
Although plenty of folks expressed their enthusiasm for a name change, not everyone seems so excited. And they made their thoughts known.
“Absolutely ridiculous to say master agent is racist. Leave it the way it is,” one commenter wrote.
Check out some of the most interesting comments people have produced in the slide show above.
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