How to continue succeeding in an opportunity rich technology and business environment is a question facing many channel leaders under pressure to continuously stand out from the crowd and unclear about how to prepare themselves for ongoing long-term success. To help unravel the issues, BT Wholesale hosted a working lunch last month attended by leading MSPs and led by leadership coach Cally Beaton.
Adapting to market change and leading from the front is key to being ultra-competitive, so Beaton unravelled the multifaceted challenges and opportunities facing today’s business leaders in the channel, and why they should ‘choose courage over comfort’ to compete more effectively, and ultimately turn each strategic decision and product expansion into a breakthrough event for their business.
For context, this channel insight session was held on the back of BT Wholesale’s launch of Teams Phone Mobile, a timely solution for resellers wanting to tap into surging demand for UC and collaboration tools. Today, Microsoft Teams has well over 320 million monthly active users and in 2023 Cavell estimated that only around 17 million are using Teams with telephony enabled – forecasting a massive rise to 40 million by 2027 (mainly in North America and Western Europe). Bolt on the fact that the broader UC market is tipped to be worth £155 billion by 2030 and the scale of the Microsoft Teams channel growth opportunity becomes crystal clear, so long as a bold, targeted and outcome-led value-building GTM approach is adopted.
Shifting mindsets towards outcomes and adding value will prove the key differentiator for MSPs
Shifting mindsets towards delivering outcomes and adding value will prove the key differentiator for MSPs moving forward, according to leaders attending the session. The discussion also pointed up how the way resellers and MSPs deliver services is changing, based on the imperative to build deeper customer relationships and create greater value.
GTM strategy
But what is the best GTM approach for resellers wanting to attach high revenue, high margin services that drive more value and help them to differentiate? According to Maintel CEO Dan Davies, market differentiation has entered its third phase. He identified phase one as being speed and quality of installation, and categorised phase two as being how well you run your own systems. Phase three requires a consultative approach that delivers personalised solutions. “This is the only way to avoid a race to the bottom which is inevitable when you are selling the same solutions as those around you,” he said.
Peter Watson, UC&C Product Manager at Wavenet, highlighted how he is changing the company’s sales behaviours to reflect this trend. “The old school sales mentality is to assume you lost a deal because the other party had a solution you aren’t offering,” he added. “This mindset leads to a bloated and unfocused portfolio that makes it harder for teams to sell and bundle. Instead, look at what more could have been done through a consultative process.”
This isn’t just a sales imperative, but something that marketers must also consider, according to Christopher Wellbelove DL (pictured left), Senior Marketing Consultant at BT Wholesale. He said: “Marketing hasn’t hit the sweet spot yet – messaging is too focused around technologies and their features, not the solutions they help to solve.”
Meeting customer expectations
To deliver on the outcome expectations of customers, each MSP in attendance is narrowing their scope to ensure service is more tailored to specific verticals. Maintel has begun to focus on four key verticals, which were chosen after a comparison of areas where it is seeing success alongside identified high-growth markets.
Digital Space has also gone through the process of focusing on where it can provide the most value. Richard Beeston, CTO/COO, added: “We built a £60 million monolith and have realised we can’t be everything to everybody. We are now looking at verticals where we can have the best conversations and are building technology stacks around the needs of those markets.”
Courage
At the heart of this new mindset is courage, according to Alex Mawson, Product and Marketing Director (Mobile) at Giacom. He noted: “Sometimes you must be brave and tell customers you can’t deliver something. If you promise to deliver everything, you are going to erode trust in the future so focus your energy where you can be an expert because that is where trust is delivered.”
Wavenet has built verticalised strategies into its feedback loop. Sam Phillips, Mobile Product Manager, stated: “From a mobile point of view, we tell our teams to be active with questions so we can start to build a profile around the needs of a vertical. At the end of the day, it’s about providing what the customer wants, rather than what you want to provide the customer.”
Gavin Jones (pictured left), Director of Wholesale Channel at BT Business, extolled the virtues of bundling around certain verticals, and even at the more granular level of employee profiles. He added: “If you are a business selling individual solutions, you are missing a big opportunity. Start to bring pieces together and create bespoke communications packages.” He recommends unique bundles for mobile workers, desk workers and customer service workers. “This proactive approach is more targeted and easier to manage in the long run,” he added.
Davies noted that this approach is in demand due to increased uncertainty in the end user base. He believes 90 per cent of Maintel’s customers just want to be advised. “They don’t care what the solution is, they just want it to work,” he said. “They aren’t tapped into a large technology strategy, their strategy is about where their business is in the now. Success for them is great outcomes without having to think about their resilience and security.”
If you’re selling individual solutions you’re missing a big opportunity. Bring pieces together and create bespoke communications packages
This all plays into the opportunity for resellers to capitalise on growing interest in UCaaS and collaboration platforms that integrate directly with Microsoft Teams and other applications, noted Jones. “Most businesses know that the age of the desk-bound phone system is a thing of the past,” he commented.
“Hybrid working is the norm and UCaaS delivers streamlined communications and collaboration tools. Adding mobile capabilities enhances the offering further, and channel partners can establish themselves as indispensable technology enablers if they can provide it.”