Proponents of the recurring revenue model argue strongly that the chickens have come home to roost for comms resellers wedded to opex revenues.
The accelerated adoption of cloud and home working tech is now a case of social change, as well as business practice and culture change. Coronavirus could truly redefine the channel landscape if CPE runs out of steam, which would play directly into the hands of cloud comms providers, strengthening further the prospects of global cloud and tech giants. A cloud rush may ensue with a massive shake up of the reseller market potentially.
What will comms look like in the post-Covid-19 world? National boundaries have become no-go zones and nations are looking inwardly. This withdrawal into introspection may have a lasting effect and could be reflected in a new localism in ICT service provider support, with a greater focus on ICT providers becoming regional hands-on champions, which could dilute the national and international ambitions of some channel players. Perhaps ICT providers will re-examine themselves with a strategic emphasis on communal and local environments.
Given the home working shift, the virus has catalysed a reaffirmation of the role that resellers play in society as well as business. Remote working is literally the only game in town and organisations are having to use more collaboration and videoconferencing technology than ever before (that has been available for a long time now), which breaks down walls and barriers between people at home and the outside world.
The sense of workplace has changed in many sectors but technology provides a cultural and collaborative equilibrium in these radical times that will certainly have a lasting impact, and make many organisations question their hitherto everyday practices. This all has a real plausibility now and should provide ICT resellers with a reason to be optimistic.
Against the backdrop of national boundaries being closed and nations becoming more cocooned, does this bring a new nuance to the role of comms technology as a unifier in a more, albeit temporary, isolationist world? The answer to this question will be a measure of how much the world would have changed its approach to using technology – and comms is central to it. The elevated role of communications in a post-Covid-19 world shines like a beacon at the end of the tunnel – that is certain.