Jan/Feb 19 - ChannelVision Magazine

work – both technical and business in nature – to be one of their main rev- enue streams during the last two years. Among companies with between 1 to 49 employees, 55 percent cite consulting as one of the services they offer. Not surprisingly, the surge in con- sulting can be attributed in large part to the cloud. Many customers are now able to self-provision solutions directly but are overwhelmed by their choices. “Of the thousands of SaaS applica- tions in the cloud today, it’s hard to know which will best meet a desired business outcome,” said CompTIA. “In comes the consultant, who is versed in a wide variety of cloud applications and is able to vet a selection to suit individual customer needs.” Consultants also can assist with long-term business strategies and help address how cloud solutions integrate and interact with a customer’s full IT and business environment, said the IT association. Likewise, hardware sales have been on a “downward spiral” and are now among the bottom of the list of services provided by IT channel partners as firms move further into services and re- curring revenue. The same can be said for break/fix services, which now gener- ate the most revenue for just 18 per- cent of respondents – about the same amount that cited digital marketing ser- vices as a top revenue generator. Ready to Emerge In terms of emerging technology, half of respondents report to being in the production stage, suggesting that at least one or more emergent technol- ogies are an active part of their port- folios and are currently being sold to customers. About three in 10 are in the experimental stage, with both these figures creeping higher the larger the channel firm is in size. Again, it’s important to note that “emerging technologies” can include a large number of disparate or comple- mentary services, and adoption among customers is still nascent. “It is quite likely that the 51 percent of respondents that said they are in production mode with emerging techs could be talking about a single custom- er engagement or experience,” warned the report. Nonetheless, IoT – both hardware and software – tops the lists in terms of familiarity among IT channel firms, followed closely behind by artificial intel- ligence, virtual reality and blockchain. Nearly half of respondents professed significant familiarity with IoT, with an- other 39 percent saying they had at least some knowledge of the technology. Emerging Tech Experimenting With or Currently Offering Internet of Things (software) 48% Internet of Things (hardware) 43% Artificial intelligence/Machine learning 42% Virtual reality 37% Blockchain 34% Augmented reality 27% Drones (hardware) 25% Biometrics 24% 3D printing 23% Drone (apps/analytics/managed services) 23% Robotics 20% 5G 20% Source: CompTIA “IoT solutions, which encompass myriad elements from hardware sen- sors and other devices to data capture/ analytics software, have been on the market longer than most of the other emerging techs,” reported CompTIA. “And many channel firms have at least begun working with IoT in some fash- ion, chiefly selling and installing devices along with providing some managed services around those devices.” The top barriers to entering into emerging technology sales, mean- while, include the need for technical and sales training, the cost of entry and the difficulty of hiring staff with the appropriate skill sets. Despite these very real and significant hurdles, how- ever, half of all respondents expect most of their revenue in the next two years to come from net-new business. “It stands to reason that much of that new business could be predicated on emerging tech solutions,” surmised CompTIA. o Core Communications Expectations for Portfolio Growth during Next Two Years Service/Solution Increase Decrease Same Security infrastructure/application services 86% 3% 11% Software as a service sales 81% 2% 17% Integration services 79% 4% 17% Data analytics (i.e. drone data, etc.) 78% 3% 19% Managed IT services 76% 3% 21% Vertical industry work 76% 5% 18% Digital marketing services 72% 7% 21% Custom application development 72% 4% 24% Back office/business function expertise 66% 5% 28% Hardware device sales 64% 13% 24% Consulting 64% 6% 31% Unified communications/telecom services 57% 3% 41% Break/fix services 51% 7% 42% Source: CompTIA 14 Channel Vision | January - February, 2019