Channel Partners Turn to Edge Computing to Help Customers Operate in New Normal

Greg Hookings

Channel partners are using edge computing as a pathway through the COVID-19 pandemic and as a foundation for future revenue growth as industries confront a new normal.

Systems integrators (SIs), value-added resellers (VARs) and distributors have been presented with a variety of unexpected challenges as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Their operating model, traditionally conducted in person, has had to move into a virtual environment. More important, though, channel partners face questions about how best to support their customers and preserve revenue in a time of change and uncertainty.

For channel partners, a focus on key customers is yielding the best results. By coming to grips with the specific challenges in key sectors, they’re able to recommend the right technologies that support a strategic approach to improving their customers’ business resilience. This process can create value that extends far beyond surviving COVID-19 and further entrenches those business relationships, to the benefit of industry as a whole.

Edge computing is perhaps the best example of a technology being recommended and implemented by channel partners that helps customers to resolve current operational challenges while positioning them for future success.

The Time Is Now

Edge computing has, for some time, been seen as a central plank in the digital transformation that will define sustainability and success in a time of change. The pandemic has accelerated the change and shown clearly that this technology has come of age. The principles of edge computing are applicable across all industrial sectors for channel partners, and this broad application enables them to offer a flexible suite of solutions to a range of customer challenges.

Built on a principle of distributed compute architecture, edge computing is at the heart of modernisation for manufacturing plants, assets and infrastructure for better management, insight and efficiency. It enables data collection from the furthest reaches of an enterprise – the very edge of operations – and eliminates the need to send that data off-site. By processing and computing at source, real-time decision making becomes possible.

Apart from the latency and bandwidth reductions associated with edge computing, a well-implemented edge computing platform can be used to significantly reduce equipment and device downtime. Downtime reduction results in improvements in productivity, efficiency and regulatory compliance, which can be seen in the bottom line. Further, that real-time visibility underpins future improvements, such as improved asset utilisation and overall equipment effectiveness (OEE), better maintenance workflows and the full realisation of human potential within a business.

Edge Computing Helps Channel Partners Win with Their Customers

Considering the size of the shock that COVID-19 caused to businesses, it’s remarkable how quickly channel partners and their customers have been able to adapt. As an understanding of the implications of the pandemic becomes clearer to their customers, the door has opened for …