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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

martin@bekabusinessmedia.com

Tara Seals

Contributing Editor

tara@bekabusinessmedia.com

Percy Zamora

Art Director

percy@bekabusinessmedia.com

Berge Kaprelian

Group Publisher

berge@bekabusinessmedia.com

Rene Galan

Associate Publisher

rene@bekabusinessmedia.com

Miki Takeuchi

Digital Media

Beka Business

Media

Berge Kaprelian

President and CEO

Neil Ende

General Counsel

Corporate Headquarters

14700 N Frank Lloyd Wright Boulevard, #157

Scottsdale, AZ 85260

Voice: 480.503.0770

Fax: 480.503.0990

berge@bekapublishing.com

© 2017 Beka Business Media, All rights reserved.

Reproduction in whole or in any form or medium

without express written permission of

Beka Publishing is prohibited. ChannelVision

and the ChannelVision logo are trademarks

of Beka Publishing

LETTER

6

Channel

Vision

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May - June, 2017