ChannelVision May-June 2017

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Faced with the evil twin villains of disruption and disintermediation, master
agents have emerged from their server closets newly armed, informed and
ready for battle. Not only are these once telecom-centric master agents saving
themselves from the supposedly inevitable obsolescence many believed they
faced in a world moving away from circuit sales toward IT and IP-based solu-
tions, they also continue to lead independent and sub-agents through the twists
and turbulence of convergence in our still-emerging ecosystem.
Putting together our annual Master Agent Directory , it’s clear that vet-
eran and traditional master agencies are not content to stand pat with their
portfolios. Even less are willing to simply ride into the sunset selling phone
lines and data circuits. Indeed, most of the companies listed here are now
funneling dozens, if not near a hundred, suppliers of all sorts of cloud and
businesses services. And it’s not just advanced and next-gen “communica-
tions” solutions. More and more it’s common to be adding logos such as
BroadSky, QTS, T-Mobile, Gibraltar, Retarus, aryaka, Mosaic 451, Digital
Realty, Rapidscale and Rackspace to a master agent listing, and to check
the box next to additions including SD-WAN, IaaS, storage, security, business
SaaS, BC/DR, DRaaS, intelligent contact centers, and more.
At the same time, leading master agent executives tell us they have put
significant resources into adding the sales engineering, back office processes,
automation and product education and training required to support all these
added solutions and facilitate the sales wheels necessary to competing in
today’s (and, even more, tomorrow’s) communications landscape.
It’s one of the reasons ChannelVision is excited to be sponsoring the
upcoming Tech+Connect event put on by master agent member group The
Alliance Partners. A three-day, invitation-only event, Tech+Connect will bring
together representatives from the top agencies in the channel to discuss
specifically the sales enablement of key emerging services. The event prom-
ises to be light on much of the noise and pitches present in traditional trade
show formats but heavy on the valuable and actionable information that gets
passed around when leading minds come together to share and network.
Tech+Connect will take place November 6 - 8, 2017, at the La Cantera Resort
in San Antonio, Texas, and we hope to see you there. In these times of telecom
transition, where buyers’ needs are evolving and competitors and foes are popping
up from several directions, it’d be wise for channel partners to pull together their
powers and share their successes and failures.
Of course, we expect there to be lots more of the former, and less of the latter.
Because while they might not be “faster than a speeding bullet,” many of the
companies in our 28-page Master Agent Directory certainly are moving fast.
Master Plans
Martin Vilaboy
Editor-in-Chief
Tara Seals
Contributing Editor
Percy Zamora
Art Director
Berge Kaprelian
Group Publisher
Rene Galan
Associate Publisher
Miki Takeuchi
Digital Media
Beka Business
Media
Berge Kaprelian
President and CEO
Neil Ende
General Counsel
Corporate Headquarters
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Scottsdale, AZ 85260
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Fax: 480.503.0990
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LETTER
6 ChannelVision | May - June, 2017