ChannelVision Jan-Feb 2017

13 / 76

EMERGENT
RingCentral vice president of channel sales and
longtime channel veteran Zane Long recently provided
ChannelVision with his predictions for the channel for
2017. Here’s what Zane sees on the near horizon.
The Bubble-Up Effect: Change demand for
UCaaS is coming from customers, which is creating
a bubble-up effect in the channel. Organizations are
initiating conversations with their trusted IT advisors
(channel partners) about moving not just core data-
driven applications but also their business communica-
tions systems to the cloud. Increasingly,
I hear customers say that going forward
they will be “cloud first” and “cloud only”
when it comes to all things IT. In 2017,
we’ll begin to see an increase in this
customer-to-partner demand behavior,
which will ultimately drive new channel
business models.
The Proof is in the Platform: Today’s
business cloud ecosystem is successful
because of the various business applica-
tion integrations that make greater work
productivity possible. But this is still a
nascent concept in channel sales. As this
trend continues to unfold and enterprises
adopt interoperable platforms, channel
partners will realize that there is more to
sell beyond the software. An integrated
business needs integrated solutions, and
only those vendors that offer up an open
platform will win the business.
The End of Hybrid IT Models: The
channel model of selling hybrid traditional
on-premises hardware with cloud-based
infrastructure and capabilities is coming to
a halt. The value proposition for cloud is
too great, and in particular, for cloud com-
munications. According to a recent NoJit-
ter report, more than half of companies
surveyed said they currently use or will
be using the cloud for their unified com-
munications needs in the next 12 months.
Over the course of next year, we will see a
major shift in the way channel executives
model their businesses, both from a sales
and services perspective. We’ll see the
channel redefine the model for technol-
ogy services – blending both conventional
and emerging IT approaches – to achieve
long-term success, and less tightrope
walking/more cloud conversion among mid
and large-sized enterprises.
Enablement is King: Partners need the right sales sup-
port and enablement in order to be successful. It isn’t enough
to have just an amazing product or the richest commissions,
because if partners are not fully enabled to really market it,
they will not position your product first. The cloud communica-
tions marketplace is crowded and the demand for these com-
peting solutions is evident (as noted in my earlier predictions).
Vendors need to “think partner enablement first,” making it
easy to transact to keep their partners transacting and gaining
market share for their solutions. o
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In the Channel for 2017
January - February, 2017 | ChannelVision 13