By Peter Radizeski CHANNEL MANAGEMENT Where have all the cowboys gone? There is only one publicly traded broker (TSB) that is growing at 18 percent. This despite hundreds of vendors leaning on the channel for sales. One vendor called to ask where the next avenue for sales would come from. A vice president of a TSB asked me the same thing. These are all indications that the traditional telecom agent channel is slowing down. What is happening to the traditional telecom partner? Partners are retiring or doing some form of investment with the private equity-backed TSBs. Going through any kind of investment requires time and attention that would be taken away from sales. For a good four months, sales activity would be secondary. There has been pricing compression, as well. Network, voice, UCaaS and even SD-WAN pricing is in decline. Renewals mean either increasing what the customer currently has or writing down revenue. This doesn’t add to the year-over-year revenue numbers. Neither does the pandemic churn. The MSP segment of the channel is a hot target for vendors. That segment has weathered its own frenzy of M&A. There is a lot of variety in what an MSP looks like. A few former CLECs – such as AireSpring and TPx – now look like managed services providers. Informa puts Expedient, a former data center company, on its “MSP top 25.” Black Box and Presidio, which waffle 34 CHANNELV ISION | JULY - AUGUST 2022
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