For channel marketers, partner models begin to blur 44 CHANNELV ISION | JANUARY - FEBRUARY 2023 By Martin Vilaboy CHANNEL MANAGEMENT Beyond the Acronyms All the way back to the early days of deregulation and divestiture, providers of communications and access services have enjoyed a pretty clear path for channel marketing. Back in the day, if a telecom provider wanted to ramp up partner sales, it would seek out strong sales agencies or enlist the help of one of the big agent aggregators. More recently, phone system and IT resellers emerged as logical up-sell partners due largely to the opportunity to bundle equipment with connectivity and collaboration services. And during the past several years, channel program emphasis has largely focused on signing up managed services providers (MSPs). But as we move into the post-pandemic environment, after the acceleration toward digital transformation has altered buyer behavior, acronyms are becoming less and less important to providers. Partners that can play the role of “trusted solution advisor,” make no mistake, will be the winners moving forward, as enterprise IT executives must navigate increasingly complex technology stacks that play increasingly larger roles in every part of the business, often while faced with a
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