In today's rapidly evolving business environment, channel partners face challenges that demand both strategic adaptation and unwavering resilience. As leaders in business and technology, it is crucial that they proactively examine the key elements of the channel landscape and understand their implications for businesses. These steps are essential to stay ahead of challenges and maintain a competitive edge.
Vice President for EMEA Strategic Partners & Alliances and EMEA Inside Sales at Hitachi Vantara.
The changing channel
One of the key factors shaping the channel industry today is the tightening economic conditions that have significantly impacted businesses worldwide. For instance, the UK recently fell into a recession, with a 0.3% dip in GDP from October to December last year. Economic challenges like these underscore the need for cost-effective solutions that balance financial constraints with innovation to continue driving operational efficiency.
We’re also seeing trends like the technology skills shortage continuing to impact the channel industry. Technology experts are required to effectively drive managed services, but with competition for these experts continuing to heighten, businesses are facing increased pressure to pay higher wages to secure the skilled labor they require. Furthermore, global supply chain issues and shortages are also resulting in bottlenecks and delays, prompting organizations to invest in more resilient supply chains to mitigate the impact on operations and revenue. And aside from all this, pressure to modernize datacenter operations remains a priority for most organizations to boost performance and support sustainable practices.
As the landscape continues to develop, effective channel strategies remain crucial to facilitate business expansion and enhance partner satisfaction and engagement – something that continues to hold importance as partner engagement becomes increasingly necessary for growth. Companies have transitioned away from rigid program structures founded on strict categorizations like partner tiers, which are based on business volume or certification count. Instead, they’ve shifted towards identifying partners based on their actions, an approach which enables the alignment of opportunities with the right partners. It also pinpoints optimal avenues for collaborative endeavors in service building, delivery, and management.
A forward-looking approach to enable success
Despite today's hurdles, there are huge opportunities for channel partners to leverage their expertise and provide valuable services and skills to their end customers. While some businesses may overlook the significance of channel partnerships, it's important – and can be hugely beneficial – to recognize the transformative power of collaboration, as well as the crucial avenue it provides for driving mutual success and sustainable growth.
Success for channel partners lies in proactively reviewing the models they use and environments in which they operate. Today, moving to and operating in highly-distributed, hybrid cloud environments is a must for data-driven enterprises. It’s no longer a luxury, but a strategic imperative to meet both financial and business goals. Furthermore, hybrid cloud models are increasingly in demand to match the requirements of modern application architectures, enabling a winning combination of greater agility, security, and cost efficiency. This exemplifies why it’s crucial for partners to ensure they work with the right technology vendors with expertise across highly dispersed infrastructure environments, and with the ability to scale and manage large volumes of data across disparate sources.
So, how can channel partners explore the services that best meet their needs? There are many innovative solutions out there, but those with a partner-first approach show great value in supporting both enterprises and channel partners as they embark on their cloud adoption journey.
Hybrid cloud as a path to building resilient infrastructure
Every organization's cloud journey is unique. The right service provider should be able to meet you wherever you are, whether you’re just starting your ascent or well on your way. For all channel partners, a comprehensive suite of services encompassing digital innovation, insightful advisory and assessment, and expert operational management is essential to ensuring you make the most of your investments. This support can mean greater ROI, expanded interoperability, and observability with existing systems, as well as reduced deployed power and footprint requirements compared to other offerings on the market today.
Ultimately, the right approach can empower businesses to harness the full potential of cloud services in driving their digital transformation initiatives, which can mean streamlined operations, new business opportunities, reduced costs, and enhanced overall efficiency. These benefits cannot be understated and can go a long way in establishing organizations as industry leaders capable of navigating complexities while enhancing their operations.
In an era where digital transformation is paramount, organizations must embrace a forward-thinking mindset that values collaboration, agility, and strategic foresight. By capitalizing on the collective expertise of industry leaders and technology pioneers to navigate the path to hybrid cloud, businesses can overcome the challenges of today’s channel landscape and chart a course towards sustainable success and meaningful impact.
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