Intelisys recently welcomed more than 1,200 sales partners, supplier partners and guests to Channel Connect, in Monterey, CA. This year’s theme was the customer experience, which comes at a critical juncture for the channel as digital transformation continues to revolutionize the way businesses deliver value to customers.
“Gathering at Channel Connect with our channel community, renewing connections and friendships, and forging new relationships is an essential endeavor, and one I look forward to every year,” Jay Bradley, president of Intelisys. “I am awed by the achievements of our Sales Partners, Supplier Partners and channel community—year after year you continue to reach new levels of success and take on new challenges and opportunities with incredible determination. These are extraordinary times as the channels converge and business models transform, and I could not be more proud to celebrate the successes and milestones attained by our partners.”
At the company’s annual Partner Awards Dinner, Serviam was named 2018 Overall Top Growth Partner, while Expert Technology Associates was named the 2018 Top Cloud Partner. Four new sales partners were added to the Platinum elite, among them Resourcive, SidePath and Blue Front Telecom Group. LAM Technology and RealCom Solutions climbed to Platinum Plus. Three years after achieving Platinum status, RDS Solutions was celebrated as the first sales partner to reach Double Platinum.
In total, 215 Intelisys Sales Partners have been awarded Club TPC Memberships for significant 2018 achievements in billings. Additionally, 84 Sales Partner organizations were awarded Club TPC Trips for growing their revenue base by a designated percentage, and will be celebrating this achievement in January 2019 at the Ritz Carlton in Aruba.
The awards celebration also featured the Second Annual Chuck Mache Award, named in honor of Intelisys’ beloved business coach, mentor and friend, as well as the newly expanded Intelisys Supplier Awards, recognizing both financial achievements and relationships.
The Chuck Mache Award recognizes an individual who embraces the hard work of getting better. It was bestowed this year upon Natasha Royer Coons, founder of TeraNova Consulting Group and CRO of Advantix.
The awards ceremony closed with a 40-minute stand-up routine by legendary comedian and actor Kevin Nealon. Nealon’s set opened with an homage to Saturday Night Live’s Weekend Update, with segments tailored for the Channel Connect audience.
Attendees visited the newly renovated Monterey Convention Center twice this year for General Session. The General Session featured all-new content, customer experience, and an impressive lineup of keynote speakers including Mike Baur, ScanSource CEO; Jeff Storey, CenturyLink CEO; Matt Lautz, Canpango CEO; Tiffani Bova, Sales Innovation Evangelist, Salesforce; Jay Bradley, Intelisys President; and Andrew Pryfogle, Intelisys SVP Cloud Transformation and the event’s emcee.
The recent ScanSource acquisition of Canpango played a significant role in the customer experience content and themes of the 2018 event. Channel Connect presented leading-edge insights and content focused on new customer experience opportunities, enabling Intelisys sales partners to position their businesses at the forefront of this transformative shift.
“This year’s Channel Connect was a milestone for RealCom Solutions, as it marked our Platinum Plus achievement,” said Charlie Bogart, Intelisys Platinum Plus Partner and the company’s president. “The event provides an incredible opportunity to network, share and connect with my peers, the best suppliers and the Intelisys and ScanSource team, every year. That it maintains its intimacy and familial spirit as it grows in sheer scope and size is a credit to this entire community, one that I am proud to be a part of.”
After morning general session content, partners dispersed to two days of education breakout sessions, covering 30 different topics across six different rounds. Drawing large crowds, “Bootstrap Marketing,” “Google: Are You Missing the Land Grab?” and “The Changing Landscape of Loyalty within Telecom,” hosted by Nextgen Channel, proved to be popular sessions, and sessions like “Salesforce: The Key to Better Customer Experiences” and “The New Managed Services Landscape” were full to the point of standing room only. This strategic focus on customizable education was implemented to provide each Sales Partner with the most effective and beneficial conference possible.
The Supplier Expo, recently expanded to two days to offer Sales Partners additional time for deep-dive conversations and networking, included a wide variety of ScanSource vendors including Cisco, Jabra, Plantronics, Ruckus/Arris, and Vtech, 116 Intelisys Supplier Partners, six business builder vendors, and dedicated Cloud Services University representatives.
