Gamma's Daryl Pile has pledged to elevate the company's partner strategy following his promotion to the role of Channel Managing Director in September.
The incoming channel chief took up the mantle following a 13 year stint at Gamma, and the move is the latest development in a 20 year career working in the comms channel in a variety of senior business development roles. With his feet now firmly under the table Pile wasted no time in reaffirming his commitment to Gamma's guiding principles - listen to partners, innovate, develop and deliver. "It's a simple philosophy," he stated. "Gamma has always been channel-centric. It was true yesterday, it's true today and it'll be true tomorrow. With the vast majority of our revenues coming from resellers, it allows us to plan and develop our services specifically for the channel, often designed nearly completely by our channel partners."
Pile's observations on how Gamma has developed over recent years is as much a story about the channel's ability to adapt and evolve with the times. "During my time at Gamma the biggest change I've seen is the number and breadth of products our channel partners are now selling," he added. "In the early days it was all about cheap minutes and diallers. I remember when wholesale line rental and dial up Internet access were cutting edge. As the market has evolved, partners have expanded their portfolios to meet the increasingly complex voice, data and mobility requirements of today's businesses. Now, partners provide a variety of VoIP, cloud and SaaS solutions. Suppliers such as Gamma are investing in making these next generation products and services easy for the channel to sell. Markets once reserved for the most sophisticated channel partners are now far more accessible."
He also noted that on the supplier side there's a diminished list of specialists whose business models are focused on, and depend on the channel, as opposed to suppliers who attempt to address the channel as a secondary target. "I believe that in a market as competitive as ours a channel partner's success hinges on working with suppliers that have a channel-centric focus, where products and roadmaps are designed to give the channel an edge," commented Pile. "Secondly, it's clear that end users want an increased number of services from one supplier, while partners do not want an unsustainable increase in the number of trading relationships and service platforms."
According to Pile, the channel partners that prosper most are those that invest in becoming early adopters of new solutions. "They gain a sales and operational head start that helps them to sweep up the low hanging fruit," he added. "Those who focus only on 'the today' end up entering a much more mature and competitive landscape running like topsy to catch up. It's also important for partners to have a clear understanding of where their strengths lie and the value they add. Partners who concentrate on these aspects as they develop their sales strategies, target markets and verticals tend to progress most quickly.
"Most importantly, resellers who have the right people, in the right culture, incentivised for the long haul usually build a successful environment. As this gains momentum it usually attracts more successful people and the whole scenario becomes self-fulfilling. It's one of the pillars of our success at Gamma."
The biggest challenge for resellers moving into voice is the heritage of what many voice-centric channel partners take for granted, but has in fact taken years to build up through their experience of indirect access, CPS and WLR, observed Pile. "These represent an enormous service, provisioning, billing and tariff knowledge base that, compared to those uninitiated in the finer arts of voice, are a huge competitive advantage," he stated.
The next five years will be an interesting time for the channel, believes Pile. "It will prosper," he said. "We'll see data services increase in both capability and quality but continue to decrease in cost. This will drive a growing number of available services in a hosted flavour and will be key in making them more competitive. We'll also see network-based convergence in fixed voice and mobile become a reality. At the same time, voice will become a mere application of the respective data service, and suppliers that are early entrants will gain a significant foothold and quickly gain a larger share of the customer spend. Over time more and more millennials will move into decision making positions. They are inclined to embrace the latest technologies with an expectation that things just work, in the office, on the move, at home, seamlessly.
"As the services we provide become more complex it's Gamma's responsibility to ensure channel partners are properly trained, equipped and adorned with all the tools and knowledge they need to effectively sell, provision and support our products to their absolute best ability, either as a whole or as part of the solution they deliver. Continuing to automate the mundane, streamline provisioning processes and put real-time support tools into the hands of our partners drives sustained gains in their efficiency, a better experience for their customers and ultimately a benefit to all of our bottom lines."
Reflecting on the past five years at Gamma, Pile recalled several products that have gone from relative obscurity to mainstream market via a loyal army of channel partners. "The frightening thing is we know we can do better in many areas," he added. "There are some obvious priorities around driving sales activity, particularly in the latest product innovations coming down the track while maintaining an acceleration in the uptake of our hosted and SIP portfolios. However, it's in the on-boarding, ongoing training and improved partner support systems that we must continue to advance as part of what we call being easy to do business with."•