ChannelVision Magazine July-August 2016

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Recommendations for
Change Management
For partners looking to ramp up
and thrive in this new landscape,
the biggest piece of advice seems
to be to educate oneself, and ac-
quire expertise. That should be in
the form of classic education oppor-
tunities – webinars and download-
able docs, for instance – but also
setting oneself up to be an expert in
a given arena.
“You have to scope out what
you want to specialize in, and you
have to do your homework on both
the technology and the provider op-
tions,” said Praske. “On the UCaaS
side, there are literally over 1,000
providers. How do you sort out
who’s who, and who’s appropriate
for which market? Some providers
don’t want to touch opportunities
under 250 seats, and some can’t
approach those over 100. Do you
know who plays where? It takes a
lot of work in vetting this.”
Lydecker noted that not every-
one is going to be an expert across
the board, and that’s okay.
“This is a complete transformation
for the partners as much as for the
customers themselves, and there are
more swim lanes than ever before,”
he said. “Everything is around speed
and agility. Large VARs, MSPs,
agents, systems integrators – every-
one wants to get up to speed the fast-
est way possible, but everyone in the
company has to be committed to the
change and understand and believe
that change is coming. This is a jour-
ney, not an overnight flip-the-switch
situation. My best advice is to partner
with those that have been through
that change already.”
So, channel players should be
open to asking for help. “Anyone
starting now … well I’m not sure
they’ll catch up,” Praske said.
“Partners that are just getting
around to it, they’re probably go-
ing to need to partner with a mas-
ter agent and look for a ‘sell with’
model instead of the ‘sell for.’ But
regardless, it’s time to get serious
about the business. It requires an
investment, so invest quickly.”
Lydecker noted that channel
partners should be excited – de-
spite any lingering uncertainty
about how to adapt.
“This is a golden era of the
trusted advisor,” he said. “There’s
so much disruption and confusion
in the marketplace, and businesses
are transforming from the way
they’ve done things for so long. This
is actually an incredible opportunity
for partners and for end customers
to reinvent themselves.”
One thing’s certain: it’s unlikely
that the rapid pace of change is go-
ing to settle down anytime soon.
“I’m already looking ahead,” said
Antonini. “Telecom Brokers is building
out next-gen portfolio, with services built
on WebRTC that allow direct, native
calling and video from a website. It’s
also getting more difficult for enterprises
to control their networks, so security and
things like multifactor authentication are
going to be the standard – we’ve added
that to our portfolio.”
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July - August 2016 | CHANNELVISION