What Savvy Channel Chiefs Already Know

How does a channel chief address the seismic shifts happening in the world of digital transformation?

How can you enable the channel to make the crossing to new opportunities promised by the digital transformation?

Phoenix Consulting Group and Highland Team have assembled thought pieces from our research, our library, and our associates to bring you a series of twelve bi-weekly missives on the future of the channel and what savvy channel chief are already implementing to not only survive the future but to thrive.

New Opportunities and New Perils

We are in a time of digital transformation which promises exciting new capabilities enabled through the convergence of Social, Mobile, Analytics, and Cloud, SMAC for short.  The convergence of these technologies is enabling the Internet of Things, new digital business models and widespread industry disruption.  While pundits estimate between $13-19 Trillion  of new value creation through this transformation, traditional industries are going to be SMAC’d. Who thought the Taxi industry might be Uber’d and self-driving cars might change the entire ground transportation industry.  No industry is immune.

What does this mean for the channel?  We’ve already seen some of the effects as cloud computing is taking hold and the buying power is shifting from IT to the business functions.  The VAR population has declined; their margins on resale are compressing. A former Cisco Channel Exec noted that the transition to recurring revenue is a 3 year journey in surviving top line loss in revenue and channel partners may never recover lost margin.  The only path to survival is through augmenting the business model to add new revenue streams.

Here are some of the dozen topics we will cover:

  • Do you have the best channel for the future?
  • Do you have the right partners?  – Partner Selection for the New Reality
  • How much margin to give your partners? – Where is the Profit in Your Channel Business Model?
  • How many partners do you need? Doing the Math.
  • Enabling the cloud – How Does Your Program Model Change?

Need an ear to listen to YOUR concerns…we are offering one hour assessments of your channel challenges. To schedule a call, please send us a note by clicking here:  Channel Assessment