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DLT Solutions President and CEO Rick Marcotte said confronting head on the fast-paced technology and business model changes that are reshaping the solution provider landscape is simply a matter of evolving or dying.
DLT Solutions, Herndon, Va., is No. 36 on UBM Channel’s VAR500 list of top solution providers in North America, and Marcotte is one of 150 solution provider CEO thought leaders gathered this week at the Best Of Breed, or BOB, conference at the exclusive St. Regis resort in Monarch Bay, Calif. Their goal: Setting a new business and channel agenda to survive amid such rapid change.
Marcotte said solution providers at the BOB conference should be mindful of the many companies that have gone out of business in the wake of the new dynamic wrought by the Internet revolution, including countless bookstores and travel agents. "These are essentially resellers who didn't evolve," he said. "The reality is it is so important today that you have to evolve or die."
Marcotte ran a division of a multinational company in the late 1990s that was hit hard by the Internet revolution. "It is very sobering to have to take out 45 [percent] or 50 percent of the workforce," he said. "It teaches you things like staying diversified, staying nimble, staying well capitalized.
"Customers want to pay less for what we are selling both in terms of products and services, and manufacturers want to make more margin," he said. "We are kind of in the middle getting squeezed from both sides. I always have a sense of urgency on how do we take our economic model and morph it and change it to make sure we are relevant in the supply chain."
Marcotte said he is excited by the prospect of brainstorming with other CEO thought leaders. "You could go to one of these things every day, but this one is important," he said of the BOB conference. "Many of us serve on advisory councils to the manufacturers. We can help change the manufacturer programs and influence what some of these manufacturers are doing. That is why it is important to share and be proactive in this forum."
Ron Dupler, CEO of GreenPages Technology Solutions, No. 158 on the VAR500 and one of the driving forces behind the BOB conference, said he urged UBM Channel to establish the event because he felt it was critical to forge a new path that will allow the channel to prosper in the cloud computing era.
NEXT: BOB Attendees On Helping Customers Solve Problems
