Channel Renaissance

Across the board, every major vendor is revamping its channel program as part of an effort to actually practice what vendors have been preaching for several years now: If you want to be valued as a channel partner, you have to add value,by selling some type of application or specializing in some particular vertical market that values your services,or some combination thereof.

Until recently, most of the vendor talk supporting value-added services came under the heading of rhetoric. But now vendors are fundamentally retooling their channel programs to reward the partners that add value best.

For solution providers that have made major investments in upgrading their technical and business consulting skills to support offering total business solutions, these changes are long overdue. For those that have not made these investments, time is running out. That's because your competitors are going to enjoy some pricing advantages over you as they reap rewards from major vendors that have restructured their programs to give their best partners better technical support and steeper discounts.

Ultimately, these program changes should lead to a short period of contraction in the channel, as some solution providers find themselves less able to compete, followed by a longer period of resurgence in which new and restructured companies in the channel emerge as stronger and better-equipped to drive technology adoption.

This period of Channel Renaissance has already begun, but channel chiefs would do well to remember that many partners still living in the comparative Dark Ages will need some hands-on training to step forward.

The future of the IT industry will be determined by the ability of solution providers to make sure the end customer receives the full economic value of technology. The industry as a whole still suffers from a credibility problem with end customers, which can only be overcome by making sure that solution providers are well-schooled in the underlying economics that drive IT purchases in corporate environments.

How is the Channel Renaissance touching you? I can be reached at (516) 562-7477 or via e-mail at [email protected].