Sept/Oct 19 - ChannelVision Magazine

The Alliance Partners, for instance, recently put out a press release detail- ing its numbers: $2.75 billion of annual billings under management for 400- plus vendors by 10,000 sales profes- sionals. There’s likely some hyperbole here, but what we’ve seen is a large number of vendors – more than 700 of them – come calling on the indirect channel for sales assistance. Three things definitely have changed in these times: selling, buying and sup- porting customers. With selling, tactics that worked just 10 years ago are just no longer that effective. It’s more inbound than outbound. The rise of the internet, with all its information and transparency, has certainly played a factor. It’s not just e-commerce, which has crippled retail (thanks Amazon), but there’s now also user generated content in its many forms. UGC-powered by the numerous social networks has led to influencers, brand ambassadors, recommendations, user reviews and employee reviews. All of this data has found its way into both the sales pro- cess and the buying process. Buyers have more information, more recommendations and less of an idea of what they need. That’s the reality. Everyone wants new and shiny and cheap, but you can’t always get that in, say, rural America. Also, new and shiny may break what’s already working at your office – or break your budget, since the cost of UCaaS is more than a key system. Also, our industry has moved away from standards such as PRI and T-1 to umbrella terms such as UCaaS and SD-WAN that have wide-open variations in terms of what they entail for the customer. Telecom has grown through a series of improvements that have always been a replacement for the network pipe or voice, but it is now edging toward solutions that are not out of the box (such as IoT) nor a replacement for something (managed Wi-Fi and cybersecurity). The sales process is sometimes transactional (how much bandwidth do you want?) to solution seller (how are you prepar- ing for a ransomware attack?). Many factors have come forward to change all segments of the chan- nel. VARs and inter-connects have felt more pressure to change or pivot than any segment. Any IT shop has felt the weight of the many components of IT that must be understood – from cell- phones, streaming devices, connected devices (such as Nest and Ring) to numerous flavors of Windows and some fruit in the mix. That will stress a tech organization – internal ones as well as independent ones. That shines some light on how buying and selling has changed, but customer support has been through menopause, as well. Outsourced to off-shored to on-shored. Google has The Channel Now (andTomorrow) T he Alliance Partners (formerly known as the Agent Alliance) hits 22 years old in 2019. Some agencies are more than 30 years old. The channel doesn’t look quite the same as it used to. By Peter Radizeski channel management more 1099 contractors than employees. Facebook and others outsource modera- tion and other functions to vendors. The big boys have outsourced various depart- ments to third parties – such as whole- sale, residential sales and the like. Recently, the big boys have been pushing smaller accounts to self-serve, leaving the channel to handle a lot of uncompensated work. It demonstrates that most sales departments and their employees don’t really value the cus- tomer much. Then companies wonder why their own sales teams are not hit- ting quotas. Sure, unattainable quota numbers and declining revenue have affected this situation, but that isn’t anything the C-suite wants to hear. They have numbers to hit to make Wall Street (and their own stock) happy. So they look harder and harder at the indi- rect channel for sales. We are at a funny time in the channel. At 20-plus years, the channel is aging out. Right at the time in which vendors – Cisco, Microsoft, AT&T, Comcast, et al – not only need a robust channel but count on it to make their Wall Street masters less grumpy. Also, the new vendors don’t fit into the transactional/replacement ser- vices model, so they have a need for ed- ucated, motivated and aligned partners. I don’t know how this all works out, but it will be interesting to watch. o Peter Radizeski is president of RAD-INFO INC., a telecom strategy and marketing consulting agency. He is also author of five books and available to speak at your events on channel, market- ing, strategy or sales. His next book on the channel will be out by Christmas. 16 Channel Vision | September - October, 2019