The EMEA Channel’s Best Gather at Channel Partners Europe Conference
Channel Partners Europe’s return to London highlighted MSP optimism in the face of challenges.
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Ian Luckett, founder of IT Experts, played the role of day one host for the Channel Partners Europe Summit & Expo. He opened the event with advice for partners to fill the gap. Luckett said the return to live events presents an opportunity for partners to find vendor partners who can accelerate the growth of their business.
Luckett, who advises MSPs on leadership, emphasized that every partner in the audience, “must fill the gap” to succeed.
IBM’s EMEA channel ecosystem leader David Stokes opened the event an upbeat tone telling everyone he is making the case for optimism. This is despite some depressing headlines in the news as of late. He sees opportunities for IBM’s channel by serving customers with a “multilateral network of partners working together,” he said.
Stokes told the audience AI, hybrid cloud, cybersecurity, sustainability and helping business build a data fabric remain big channel opportunities.
“Only 30 percent of workloads have moved to the cloud,” he said citing an opportunity to help companies more applications and data to the cloud. Stokes also said business adoption remains low and is poised to double in the next three years. To succeed, partners must adapt new ways of working and adopt what he called co-creating to solve customer problems.
“Technology has always been a force for progress and it is not different this time around.”
Executives from the 2022 EMEA MSP 501 gathered for a panel discussion to tackle the biggest issues of the day.
In a wide-ranging discussion, the leaders of Fiofsys, Kocho, Complete IT and CMI said they are focused on the value their brands represent while fighting hard to hire IT professionals.
Mitesh Patel of Fifosys, Ken Roulston of CMI, Des Lekerman of Kocho and Mark Williams of Complete IT said they were optimistic about 2022 growth prospects and are seeing no pull back from customers when it comes to spending on IT and communications products and services. Their single biggest challenge remains finding and retaining talent. But to do, they are having to pay staffers higher salaries which, in turn, is causing them to raise prices to customers passing some of that cost along.
The question was raised, how, as an MSP, can you differentiate yourself in a crowded market?
Fifosys’ Patel (second from right) pointed to specialisation — both in technology and in vertical markets. For this, Fifosys has adopted a three-point plan.
“About 45 percent of our business is financial services; we can leverage that with new clients. The size of client that we’re going after is slightly larger. The third thing is building our and cyber and data analytic skills,” he said. “With that, you ended up carving yourself a space in the market. And the markets huge – there’s space for everybody. [But] if everybody’s doing the same thing, it’s difficult for clients to pick.”
“The old saying is get big, or get niche,” said Roulston “That translates needing a wider breadth of skills and depth of resources. The niche is really about having something that is either market sector focused, or skills-focused.
“Security is a big one. The whole industry is moving from an MSP to an MSSP over the next few years. If an MSP doesn’t have security skills as part of its portfolio, it’s going to get left behind.”
Adam Wilson of Vonage and Google Cloud’s Simon Aldous joined IBM’s David Stokes to talk partner strategies.
Aldous described partners as critical to Google Cloud’s go-to-market. “Our goal is to have 100% partner attach everything. Because we recognise that partners are the differentiator. That’s firmly our direction of travel,” he explained.
“We’re at a point now where cloud has allowed or actually facilitated the detachment of the influence chain from the transaction chain. From a customer standpoint, there are multiple ways now they can procure services, direct through marketplaces, multiple marketplaces, or through a reseller. We recognise that, and we’re trying very hard to ensure that we’re building an ecosystem and a programme that supports both those elements. In terms of very clearly defining our sales motions and how we wish to engage with partners and drive their skills and capabilities.”
The exec said Google has seen a 250% increase in partner revenues and a 400% increase in partners entering the Google Cloud partner ecosystem.
“Partners see that it’s not just rhetoric – we listen to the market and we can see where the value comes from.”
The panel of execs at Channel Partners Europe also tackled the role of distribution.
Vonage’s Wilson said distribution has been critical for Vonage’s growth since landing in the UK channel in 2019. “For us to start up the channel, to scale the channel distribution is absolutely key.”
But with Vonage being a SaaS vendor, what does that mean from distribution point of view?
“That means we were very much extracting value from the partner relationships, making connections with those partners and ensuring that we have relationships that are beneficial from an agent perspective … A true mutual partnership is hugely important to us. That’s where we’ve found that distributors have been able to help us the most,” he said.
“Being able to make a connection to those that are trusted advisers to their customers and being able to create a safe pair of hands, provide advice and guidance. But also bringing the right partners to the right vendor and providing and the right customer outcome that we’re all striving for.”
The panel of execs at Channel Partners Europe also tackled the role of distribution.
Vonage’s Wilson said distribution has been critical for Vonage’s growth since landing in the UK channel in 2019. “For us to start up the channel, to scale the channel distribution is absolutely key.”
But with Vonage being a SaaS vendor, what does that mean from distribution point of view?
“That means we were very much extracting value from the partner relationships, making connections with those partners and ensuring that we have relationships that are beneficial from an agent perspective … A true mutual partnership is hugely important to us. That’s where we’ve found that distributors have been able to help us the most,” he said.
“Being able to make a connection to those that are trusted advisers to their customers and being able to create a safe pair of hands, provide advice and guidance. But also bringing the right partners to the right vendor and providing and the right customer outcome that we’re all striving for.”
The Channel Partners Europe Summit returned to London for its first in-person gathering since the COVID lockdowns. It brought together partners, technology providers, distributors, thought leaders and industry experts, all focused on the EMEA tech economy.
Those gathered expressed exuberance they were finally able to connect face-to-face, especially to come and honor the EMEA winners of the 2022 MSP 501 during an awards gala that also included the EMEA winners of the Next Gen 101.
The day kicked off with optimism from speakers Ian Luckett of IT Experts and David Stokes, the leader of IBM’s EMEA partner ecosystem. Despite a backdrop that includes a stock market selloff, a war in the Ukraine, rising interest rates, soaring energy prices and inflation, a panel of 2022 MSP 501 winners said their business remains healthy and they are not seeing any signs of a slowdown from their customers.
“I am making the case for optimism,” Stokes told the audience citing strength and channel opportunities in cloud, security, AI and data management among other sectors.
His remarks seemed to lift the crowd. “There is a massive opportunity around hybrid cloud in this next stage of digitization,” he said. Before bringing Stokes to the stage, event host Luckett said partners must look to fill the gaps in their portfolios and the only way to do that is by finding the right partners who can drive growth.
Click on the slideshow above for more highlights from day one of Channel Partners Europe Summit.
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