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EMERGENT

business quarter – that can easily

be integrated with their custom-

ers’ existing technology environ-

ments. Working together, Avnet

and relayr will give partners the

foundation they need to help their

customers create IoT solutions

from simple experimentation to

full-scale deployments.”

Ancillary Opportunities

Above and beyond the IoT

solutions themselves, channel

partners also have the opportunity

to bring their expertise as trusted

advisors to the mix, layering on

additional solutions.

“The channel is making signifi-

cant progress with monetizing the

IoT opportunity and, unlike past

years, view themselves as strong

profitability candidates,” said Seth

Robinson, senior director of tech-

nology analysis at CompTIA.

Stumbling blocks to widespread

IoT deployments include concerns

about costs and return on invest-

ment; technical hurdles; and li-

ability, privacy and other regulatory

matters. As a result, consulting

is currently the most popular IoT

channel offering, with 40 percent

of companies offering something

in this space. The next most popu-

lar offering is security, provided

by 36 percent of firms. Analytics,

managed services, custom app

development, reselling and infra-

structure services are offered by

between 30 percent and 35 per-

cent of companies.

“First, the complexity of IoT

projects is beyond what many

companies can handle internally,

especially on the SMB end of the

spectrum,” Robinson explained.

“Second, many areas of IoT are

essentially extensions of the skills

and lines of business that solution

providers already have.”

Security might be the fastest-

growing ancillary arena. Aruba’s

aforementioned global IoT study ear-

lier this year revealed that 84 percent

have already experienced a security

breach as a result of implementing

IoT. Out of those, 49 percent dealt

with malware, 38 percent have been

the target of spyware, 30 percent

experienced phishing and 26 percent

suffered from a DDoS attack.

Overall things look bright for

channel partners: CompTIA’s

Inter-

net of Things Trends and Opportu-

nities

report found that 23 percent

of channel companies surveyed

say they’ve already made money

from IoT offerings, compared to

just 8 percent in 2015. Looking

forward, one-third of channel firms

expect to make money from IoT in

the next 12 months.

o

Channel

Vision

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May - June, 2017

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