Playbook Volume 11 - ChannelVision Magazine - Digital Transformation

They say that the channel has not evolved to sell more than voice and network, thus, making channel partners irrelevant. The other side of that coin is that the channel is getting older – ready to retire. The mergers and ac- quisitions in the MSP space might be a showcase for that. It may not be cheaper to buy than to build, but it is certainly faster. Plus, mergers mean acquiring tal- ent, something that is a scarce resource today. The original master agencies such as WTG and Microcorp are touting new technologies that the channel needs to embrace, including IoT and AI. That would be great, but as Office Depot learned recently, you must productize these tech- nologies in a way that they can be sold and mar- keted. IT-as-a-service sounds nice, but the devil is in the details and deployment. While the channel has been a proponent of new technology in the past, creating demand for products is not what the channel does. Vendors are adding marketing automation to their channel programs in order to assist their partners with More a Pivot than a Shift T here have been more than a few articles about the death of the channel. Analysts, keynote speakers and pundits have been railing about this inevitable demise for years. Channel partner choices in an evolving ecosystem By Peter Radizeski 28 THE CHANNEL MANAGER’S PLAYBOOK