Customers are now demanding more solutions that can meet their business needs. A year after experiencing constant hurricanes, fires, mudslides and more, they now want the chance to recover their data easier than ever before. Customers are also now buying technology to ensure a business outcome, such as a reduction in cost or even an increase in availability. These are just a few of the trends that are influencing businesses in this day and age.
Partners are the folk who develop, design and even deliver solutions for both customers and businesses. They do this by utilising vendor technology, and they are also fully accountable for the business outcome as well. The partner who owns the relationship with the customer can then turn a channel partner into an advisor who can be wholly trusted. In some instances, the customer may not even be aware that it is the vendor who is providing the solution.
Partners are referred to by numerous names, including resellers, system integrators, consultants, agents and more. They identify themselves by all of these labels as well. In fact, when partners were asked to identify themselves, they chose over 2.7 terms on average. This shows that it is nearly impossible for a single term to be used in order to identify any given partner.
Vendor Respondents
In a survey that was recently done, vendors were asked about the revenue that was being driven by the partners who they work with. One third of the vendors who were asked stated that more than 50% of the revenues were being driven by partners. Most of the vendors who participated in the survey found that a solid 50% of their revenues were transacted through partners, but when you change the terminology to driven, this drops to 26-50%.
There is some good news to come out of all this. 73% of the vendors who responded stated that their partner-driven revenues would increase by 2018. 3% of them stated that their partner revenue would decrease. This ultimately points to the idea that partners are becoming more and more important to the revenue stream of a vendor, and this is especially the case when you look at market reach, customer satisfaction and more.
Cloud Adoption
There is absolutely no denying the fact that cloud adoption is growing more and more by the year. Cloud platforms are now enabling new and even more complex business solutions and when you combine this with the cloud service adoption, you will soon see that they are increasing to the mid-tier for small and medium businesses. When you look at the numbers from IDC, you will soon see that cloud computing spending is now expected to grow six times over and this is especially the case when you look at the period between 2015-2020.
Slow Evolutions
Don’t interpret a slow evolution to cloud solutions being a sign of zero change. 20% of partners have indicated that they had more than a quarter of their revenue coming in from sales lines, instead of through business and IT departments. 76% of partners have indicated that they are trying to increase their investments in selling line of business owners within the next year, and 40% of business partners have indicated that they have more than 25% of revenue coming in from managed services.
Finding the Right Partners
Most IT vendors are constantly on the lookout for the next generation of products. They want to launch the digital age so that it can then be used to drive, influence and sell the adoption of cloud-based technology. Even manufacturers of traditional hardware are now working hard to try and find next generation solutions, so that they can extend their sales reach and even customer success as well. The problem is down to the complex nature of developing full solutions such as this. The vendor respondents have indicated that they are foremost looking to grow the ranks of their systems. A system integrator consults and creates solutions that work well for both regional and global clients, and is frequently considered to be a trusted advisor when it comes to strategic issues. Vendors are looking to grow their systems and their integrator ranks by 11-25% within the next few years.
Effective Programmable Elements
All channel professionals care about their elements on a deeper level. If you are reading this post, then there is a high chance that you are one of the many channel professionals who spends weeks on end trying to design and even redesign programs. You benchmark the industry, assess the programs against that of your competitors and even enhance or update them years in advance.
The most critical element of success here is partner enablement. Two thirds of vendors responded stating that their priority is selling the value and differentiation of their products. Vendors never seem to believe partners when they say that they have a clear understanding of the value that their products bring to the market, and they don’t see how they can be differentiated from competitive products.
Training
A fourth of vendor respondents require some level of certification. This may seem like a lot, but it is far more surprising to see that most of the vendors did not indicate what type of certification was required. It’s shocking to see that half of the vendors showed that certification is required to progress up to higher program levels. Vendors are missing a huge opportunity to try and grow their partner sales, satisfaction and even success by not putting a much higher priority on the vertical marketing opportunities that they have. Solution provider businesses are now becoming much more differentiated as cloud adoption continues to grow. They are now creating niches upon niches of expertise when it comes to this type of market, the line of business that comes with it and even specific technology-based solutions as well.
With the market always changing, it is now more important than ever to change with it. It is only by taking the above into consideration that this is going to be possible.