Understanding the tech forces reshaping the channel’s future is a top priority for all resellers and MSPs, and making the right strategic choices in terms of proposition development is key, writes Neil Wilson (pictured), Chief Product and Marketing Officer and Paul Smith, Chief Sales Officer, PXC (Comms Vision Platinum sponsor).
When looking at the tech forces reshaping the channel it’s crucial to consider the economic environment in which they exist. In a world of high interest rates, inflation and rising costs of living, juxtaposed with highly competitive and commoditised markets, UK businesses must position themselves as lean, responsive and adaptable, to effectively serve evolving customer demands in such tough climates. Technology is critical to deliver these benefits, while also vital in helping businesses achieve their goal of doing more with less.
The pressures being put on professionals to remove business costs through automation, diversify portfolios to sell more to those we already sell to, and remove legacy to provide products that suit evolving customer requirements, all feed into that agenda. The challenge is in delivering these outcomes while staying within budget.
With services now more intertwined than ever, if you’re not embracing new technologies you’re going to get left behind
This provides a huge opportunity for the channel to help businesses make the most of what they’ve already spent and to help them invest their future money wisely. As such, much potential can be realised by directing people away from CAPEX investments to OPEX investments, so that costs grow and decrease as a business does.
The growing role of channel partners
As customer needs evolve, IT must follow suit – which we’ve seen in the drive towards full fibre, calling for connectivity to be more reliable, plus quicker and safer to use. It’s no surprise then, that the ICT world and the range of solutions on offer is only getting bigger and more complex. Yet, to make matters more complicated, many businesses have stripped out their expert knowledge in recent years, opting instead to buy in services as managed solutions. This puts emphasis on the growing opportunity for channel partners to act as technology educators and enablers, to fulfil the skills gap that exists for end customers today.
While a business might be clear on the strategic direction they want to go in, they may not have the skills to undertake the vendor selection piece, which provides opportunities in consultancy. In contrast, a business might know the direction they want to go in but not have the bandwidth to project manage that, providing opportunities in service implementation.
However, while great opportunities, there is still more channel partners can do to close that knowledge gap. As the telecoms ecosystem continues to expand it brings with it rapid convergence. This means that while conversations like connectivity and voice used to be separate and distinct, they now overlap as the products and services work in tandem, calling for businesses to have multidisciplinary expertise which isn’t always the easiest talent to find.
We believe that vendors have an important role to overcome this issue and empower the channel by providing them with the skills or the backup to support their services. At PXC, we offer a pre-sales team, partner training and comprehensive service literature to upskill our partners so that they have the knowledge and expertise to effectively serve their end customers.
Embedding new technologies
It’s true that the telecoms market has always been, and will always be, driven by emerging technologies because it’s a fast-moving market that is continually growing with customer demand and innovation. With services now more intertwined than ever, if you’re not embracing new technologies you’re going to get left behind because other companies are. Because of this, managed services providers should always be looking ahead to what’s coming to be able to diversify their offerings and give the channel what it needs to stay competitive. The caveat is in striking the right balance between focus and diversification – having the products that suit your customer base yet finding complementary products and solutions to what you already offer to tap into new revenue streams.
When it comes to embracing any new technology, the priority should always be the customer. With so many new technologies out there, it’s easy to get involved in technology for technology’s sake. The trick is to continually review your tech stacks alongside your customer’s strategies to ensure they align. It’s about being rigorous from the beginning to ensure what you’re onboarding is right for your market to give you the best chance of generating a return.
Once you’ve onboarded a product it’s then about not jumping to the next one too quickly. Launching a product is not just about being able to sell it, but having it natively embedded into everyone’s pitch so that your people are comfortable selling it, and your customers are comfortable using it.
You must give a product time to succeed which sometimes means getting comfortable moving at a pace different to the channel if it helps serve your customers better. The difficult task, that needs to be achieved by MSPs, is keeping one eye on the future while not losing sight of the present.
Finally, it’s inevitable that as technologies age they become more commoditised, but that doesn’t mean you stop focusing on them. At PXC our backbone is connectivity, an incredibly mature product offered by lots of providers. To diversify our offering we look for solutions that are complementary to it – like DDoS Protection and Zoom – to give our customers more of what they need in one solution. It’s about continuous consultation when considering your go-to-market approach – why do my customers want the products they’re asking for – rather than simply focusing on products because if you focus on products, you’re very easy to compare against.
About Comms Vision
Comms Vision is the leading annual leadership forum for CEO, MD and CTO delegates making up the major league of the UK MSP community. To find out more visit www.commsvision.com