Here’s What 25 Channel Chiefs See As The Keys To Solution Provider Success In 2022

Channel executives on the CRN 2022 Channel Chiefs list offer advice to their channel partners on the steps they need to take to be successful this year including adapting to new customer buying practices, obtaining certifications for leading-edge IT, expand their service capabilities and remain flexible in a still-evolving pandemic business environment.

The Need To Succeed

Anyone asking one of those Magic 8-Balls about the outlook for 2022 would likely get the response “Cannot predict now.” Or maybe even “Ask again later.”

But we’re asking now. We’ve queried the honorees on the CRN 2022 Channel Chiefs list on what they see as the keys to their channel partners’ success in the new year. They provide a range of advice from the business strategies and practices they should adopt, to the types of IT they should be selling and the types of services they should offer their clients.

Here’s the advice that 25 of the top channel executives on this year’s CRN 2022 Channel Chiefs list had to offer.

Addigy

Jason Samples

Chief Revenue Officer

Adapting to the growing adoption of Apple devices in the workplace. Apple has bet heavily on growing its base of business users with massive investments in the new MacBook Pro, macOS Monterey, and M1 Pro and M1 Max chips. Already gaining momentum in the SMB market that MSPs support, these upgrades deliver an unprecedented level of processing power and efficiency that will only accelerate Apple adoption in the workplace. If MSPs are unable to deliver the same level of management and security for Apple devices as they do for Windows devices, expect many of them to struggle in 2022.

Amazon Web Services

Ruba Borno

VP, Worldwide Channels, Alliances

Looking to 2022, agility and adaptability will be crucial to the success of many, but the differentiated key to success for our channel partners requires a few things:

1) focusing and delivering on our customer obsession,

2) investing in continued training and certification,

3) participating in AWS differentiation programs,

4) enrolling in relevant AWS Partner Paths to further engagement, and

5) leveraging the APN Customer Engagements program to build a foundation for co-selling.

Axonius

Mark Daggett

VP, Channel Alliances

There are two key areas for 2022: professional services and increased participation in technical certifications. Axonius is not a services provider, yet its support team frequently fields requests from its global customer base. Partners that participate in the 1.5-day Professional Services Training will be key partners for referrals for these service requests [and] opening up recurring revenue opportunities. Thirty-one partners have completed the technical certification program, which launched in 2021. These partners have demonstrated that the enhanced knowledge makes it faster and easier to demo and close deals and enables partners to provide better support and identify upsell opportunities.

Check Point Software Technologies

Frank Rauch

Worldwide Head of Channel Sales

The simple answer is new business. Partners who are able to drive new customer acquisition or successfully execute on cross-selling and up-selling existing accounts will enjoy the most success with Check Point. The successful partner will also be driving customer success through security assessments, professional and managed services. This group of partners will have a good understanding of how to leverage our program and align with our field sellers.

Comcast

Craig Schlagbaum

Senior VP, Indirect Channels

In 2022 we need our partners to continue to move even more aggressively towards more solutions-selling with us by adding SD-WAN and security to as many sales as possible in the mid-market space and then also to sell more complex bundled solutions in the SMB space. In addition, we have set up a new tool called Orion for our partners to configure, price and quote our offerings and it will be imperative for the Technology Services Distributors (TSDs) and others to get comfortable working with that tool to work closely with Comcast Business.

Cradlepoint

Steve Benvenuto

VP, Americas Partner Sales

Lead with proven use cases that include the Cradlepoint Technology Alliance ecosystem partners. This includes developing specific vertical-focused customer outcomes. It is also important to understand which markets/segments/verticals might recover more quickly coming out of the pandemic and focus in those areas. Develop and deliver new and unique end-to-end services, specifically managed services, and adopt, expand and renewals services. Find the twin: When you win with a compelling customer use case, always look to find its twin customer. Look to leverage your customer databases to replicate and scale wins.

Datto

Rob Rae

Senior VP, Business Development

Continued MRR [monthly recurring revenue] growth. We do believe that we are in a “golden age.” Through thought leadership pieces (blogs, keynotes, etc.) we are pinpointing the opportunities for the MSP channel that either changed or accelerated as a result of the pandemic.

Dell Technologies

Cheryl Cook

Senior VP, Global Partner Marketing

Agility, flexibility and adaptability will be keys to their success. Partners will need to adapt to the rapidly changing business landscape and new emerging technologies quickly. They‘ll need to adopt an agile mindset—make quick decisions, fail, fail fast, test and learn, mobilize and capitalize. They’ll need an agile operating rhythm that delivers results and aligns the organization at the speed of which this world is moving. This may mean transitioning to new business model, and developing and training flexible, future-ready employees.

Epicor

Paul Flannery

VP, International Channel Sales

Focus on what they want to become ‘Famous’ for, whether as a digital transformation solution provider, an expert in a specialized technology set or industry focus and support them to achieve that by continuing to build on the three pillars of: Enablement - be experts in the product or solution area; Engagement - develop joint business and marketing plans in focus area through shared goals and insight, working jointly [with] customer to leverage each other‘s strengths; Execution – flawlessly map the customer journey and buying process, qualify in/out quickly and improve win-rate

Google Cloud

Kevin Ichhpurani

Corp. VP, Global Ecosystems and Channel

Go deep when it comes to building solution expertise and industry capabilities. Partners need to invest in certifications, expertise, and specializations. Customer buying patterns have moved beyond seeking cost savings from lifting and shifting workloads to the cloud, to digital innovation agendas that require a rethinking of business processes or reinventing business models altogether. Partners need to have deep industry and business process expertise, because they are supporting both the line of business as well as IT. Those who make the investment and build the skills to deliver on these new opportunities, will be able to achieve real success.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise

Leslie Maher

VP, Channels, Ecosystem

The top areas of focus that will drive success for our HPE channel partners in 2022 are: 1. Accelerating the pivot to as-a-service with HPE GreenLake. 2. Focusing on customer priority workloads, insights with HPC/AI and enabling data-centric applications. 3. Capturing business at the edge. 4. Expanding new logos overall and growth in midmarket, SMB and SLED.

HP Inc.

Luciana Broggi

Head of Global Routes to Market

The key to success for partners in 2022 is to prioritize data analytics. Data is one of the most valuable resources to derive insights, better understand and anticipate customers‘ needs, and make tailored recommendations. Partners that harness data are thriving by tapping into well-informed insights that offer deeper knowledge, provide future-looking information, and recommend specific actions. HP launched HP Amplify Data Insights to turn data analytics from HP, partners and third-party sources into rich insights. Together, this new platform puts HP’s partners in a position to win – even as customer behaviors shift with the staggering digital transformation unfolding globally

Intel

John Kalvin

VP, GM, Global Scale, Partners

Our partners need to capitalize on the opportunity presented by the four tech superpowers: ubiquitous computing, pervasive connectivity, cloud-to-edge infrastructure, and artificial intelligence. Each of these is important and involves a significant number of interconnected products, partners, and technologies. Individually, these superpowers are strong, but working together, they reinforce and amplify one another. Similarly, when our ecosystem works together, we create better software, services, and solutions. We want to enable opportunities where partners get what they need from us, and they can connect with other partners to get what they need from each other.

Masergy Communications

Jim Glackin

Senior VP, Global Channel Sales

Selling across a wider landscape of IT needs (security, SASE, WFH, AI, etc.). The cloud, network and security are coming together as the foundation for digital transformation, and partners must meet the market with a broader approach to consultation and a larger portfolio. Our partners need to be confident across more IT domains, meeting companies of every size everywhere along their transformation journey. Partners must also leverage the value that the Comcast Business acquisition brings to Masergy through more competitive pricing, richer incentives, and increased investments in our sales, engineering, operations, and channel teams.

Nvidia

Alvin Da Costa

VP, Worldwide Partner Organization

Partners should continue to do training and develop their staff on artificial intelligence. For example, data scientists play a critical role in machine learning, a subset of artificial intelligence. They should also look into making investments in demo equipment and specialized staff.

RSA

Brian Breton

Regional VP, Americas Channel

[RSA security software] SecurID is first and foremost a channel-first solution and has been for more than 10 years. Our channel partners‘ success is essential: We believe they must continue acting as trusted advisors and start by understanding their customers’ needs, priorities and operations. Businesses shouldn‘t have to adapt their practices to vendor’s. instead, vendors need to provide a trusted identity platform that works however and whenever its users do. By understanding the full breadth of SecurID’s capabilities and its integrations with more than 400 technologies, our channel partners can help businesses develop the high-value identity resources they need.

Sage

Nancy Teixeira

VP, Partner Strategy, Sales

Focus on micro-verticals as a differentiator and value driver. Robust lead and opportunity creation leveraging Sage assets. Follow our streamlined sales process to align with current buying trends and cadences. Leverage all the available Sage resources (people, programs). Focus on native-cloud, new customer acquisition and migration of existing customers to Sage Intacct or Sage Partner Cloud. Provide deeper services and expand value to customers by delivering whole product solutions through add-ons, ISV solutions, and vertical domain expertise.

SAP

Karl Fahrbach

Chief Partner Officer

To be successful, I believe SAP channel partners must fully adopt a cloud mindset, transform their businesses to drive customer success across the entire lifecycle, and join SAP in our strategic priorities such as RISE with SAP, SAP Business Technology Platform, and industry cloud. SAP is committed to delivering cloud acceleration with our partners. Taking advantage of the resources we offer is key to that effort.

Schneider Electric

Shannon Sbar

VP, Channels

The key to success for channel partners will be to embrace hybrid selling strategies to improve their profitability, differentiate their businesses and help solve problems for their customers. Our partners need the right tools to do this – access to innovative digital training, offers, solutions, and services that will allow them to guide their customers to the best choice in IT infrastructure. It‘s key to partner with vendors who continue to evolve programs and offer new solutions to enable sustainable business growth for future success.

Tableau

Julie Bennani

Senior VP, GM

Continuing to stay current on our entire product portfolio and platform expansions is critical to delivering the best solutions to our customers. To do this, partners must keep investing in keeping their people current by role (i.e. capability building), continue to iterate their offerings to address specific business needs and use cases, and take some risks on expanding service and IP-oriented offerings. Finally, all partners should stay close with us as we evolve our sales motions by customer segment and industry - we are better when we sell together and quickly convert a customer‘s purchase of software into actual outcomes.

Tenable

Terry Dolce

Senior VP, Global Channels, Business Development & Technology Alliances

Hunting new business: Net new logos or expanding new product [sales] within existing customers. Our partner program is built to reward inbound business. Becoming service delivery certified: This allows them to take all the services revenue and margin, versus having to resell it or have it subcontracted to them. Becoming more technically proficient: This will allow partners‘ SEs and services teams to directly own the full sales cycle with customers and become their technical experts, which will result in more revenue for them.

Veeam

Kevin Rooney

VP, Americas Channel Sales

As companies return to the office, channel support teams will likely remain restricted when it comes to in-person meetings. I anticipate that not many companies will allow people from outside of their organization to re-enter their workspaces, meaning our channel partners must step up their virtual support games and online capabilities to accommodate customers – and the key differentiator will be in favor of those who set these capabilities up quickly. This is where we will see automation‘s role in the channel come into play. The more channel support teams begin to automate their services, the more profitable they’ll become.

VMware

Sandy Hogan

Senior VP, Worldwide Partner, Commercial Operations

With our support and enablement, the biggest opportunity for VMware partners is to focus on the development of specialized capabilities to decipher and manage complexity, articulate clear business value, and deliver outcomes in an increasingly complex multi-cloud world. Customers are hungry to become “cloud smart,” and this is a great time to guide them on their multi-cloud journeys. Many are ready to transform their business now, and they‘re eager for the right business and technology partners.

WatchGuard Technologies

Mark Romano

Sr. Director, Worldwide Channel Programs and Field Marketing

Like most businesses, solution providers make money by increasing recurring revenue while reducing costs. In 2022, successful MSPs will focus on vendor consolidation to work with those that can help not only attract and grow client rosters, but also contribute to cost savings and higher margins. With the right vendor partnerships, consolidation can help drive competitive differentiation, which will increase new business success and end-customer wallet share over time and can also generate dramatic savings as it relates to staffing, training and certification, and ongoing service administration.

Xerox

Wilson Vega

VP, U.S. Agent, Velocity Channels

Retention of employees and clients will be crucial to any business’s success. One of the keys will be high communication with employees and clients. Employees and clients need to feel valued. With so many distractions the last several years, organizations will need to remain outwardly focused into the marketplace and be maniacal on gaining more share. Partners will need to listen to their clients‘ changing needs and must have the agility to pivot to those needs to remain relevant.