When a Modern Customer Meets the Modern Technology Advisor

For Guhan Raghu and Doug Cardozo, running a technology advisor practice should go far beyond technology.

Raghu and Cardozo co-own 3DG Partners, an Allen, Texas-based technology advisor that has existed since 2018 but has hit the channel scene in a big way in 2023. 3DG recently landed what its vendor and distributor partners called the largest deal in the history of the agent channel, helping a nationwide retail chain establish managed broadband services.

In addition to their business success, Cardozo and Raghu represent an interesting case study for the agent channel. Their business on paper falls into the category of an agent (now more commonly referred to as a technology advisor), which sources cloud and carrier services to customers and leverages its vendors for managed services, end-user billings and monthly commissions. However, both entrepreneurs have taken a very different career path than the average agent. Most agents started their careers at telecom carriers before taking an independent path, but Cardozo worked in sales at Cisco, and Raghu worked as a chief information officer on the customer side.

Technology Advisor Approach

And like many up-and-coming technology advisors, they say they’re approaching prospective customers as consultants rather than as brokers.

“If you have a customer bringing you a solution and just asking you to go source it, that is not the right place for where we feel we belong. It’s more of, ‘Hey, let’s work together to figure out what are the options out there and what are the alternatives. Then get you ultimately connected with the best solution,'” Raghu told Channel Futures. “So I think the modern customers are looking for more of that. Whether they come to you directly on that in their first call or not is another story, but it seems like they’re looking for more of that advisory practice, whether they know it or not. They are actually looking for someone to be a sounding board and maybe even pressure-test the solution that they bring to you.”

Raghu and Cardozo shared the story of 3DG with Channel Futures. They also offered up perspectives on how IT departments are evolving in their procurement needs and how 3DG’s supplier and distributor partners have gone to market with them.

Read the interview transcript, edited for length and clarity, in the 10 images above.