WOTC Panel: Diversity In Workplace Is Key To Succeeding In Shift To Cloud, Recurring Revenue

As customers change the way they consume technology, a panel of Women of the Channel executives said vendors and solution providers need to break the mold and embrace employees with a more diverse set of skills and backgrounds to help them keep pace.

Chris Wolff, senior vice president of the Cisco Alliance Group at Dimension Data, compared the shift that businesses have to go through to a solid transitioning to a liquid and then a gas. That can cause businesses like Dimension Data, as well as its vendor partners, a lot of "heartburn" to navigate that shift, Wolff said on the panel at the Women of the Channel Leadership Summit in New York.

To accomplish that shift, Wolff said technology companies need to bring in a more diverse employee base, including women and people from all backgrounds, to soften egos, look at problems a different way and provide more diverse points of view.

[Related: Power 100: The Most Powerful Women Of The Channel 2016 (Part 1)]

"It seems to me the folks who are winning really get it and see that this digital world requires a different type of thinking. … We need more women and all kinds of faces in that room," Wolff said.

While there is a natural fear of change, Jessica Couto, vice president of U.S. channel sales and marketing at Carbonite, said the transition plan should include a mix of generations, including experienced employees, those just entering the workforce who grew up with technology, and those in between.

"I think it's been a learning curve for everyone. … I think it takes experience, it takes hiring people in different avenues, and being open to those ideas and not putting all the eggs in one basket," Couto said.

This shift provides a particular opportunity for solution providers, said Valerie Singer, vice president, cloud strategy and sales, North America alliances and channels, at Oracle. Legacy vendors are still navigating the transition to the cloud and, on the flip side, born-in-the-cloud vendors face their own issues around scalability and forward momentum, she said. Partners can help "fill the gaps" between those two extremes, Singer added.

"In the middle there is a tremendous opportunity for the partner community to help fill in the gaps and help orchestrate to make our customers feel safe and secure and that we're leading them in the right direction. It creates a lot of opportunity in the channel," Singer said.

Jennifer Hewlette, director of global partner marketing at Cisco, agreed, saying that the "digital transformation is completely disrupting our go-to-market models" and makes the need for partners greater than ever.

The good news for solution providers is that they are often able to evolve and move more nimbly than their larger vendor partners, said Brenda Leonard, senior director, national managed partners, at Veritas Technologies. That has led to a rise in new breeds of partners, including managed service provider partners, she said.

"Our partners are a little bit ahead of the curve. ... They are much more nimble and we're able to learn from them quite often," Leonard said.

Hewlette said it is important for vendors to "embrace a much broader set of partners to deliver a broader set of solutions," just as companies internally need to diversify their employees to meet changing market needs.

"It's really about how together we can solve the problems that are in front of us. No one company can do it alone," Hewlette said. That is the "heart of getting it right for the future," she said.