Channel Predictions: Trends Fueling Partner Changes for 2022
We gathered comments from a range of vendors to find out what they think lies in store for partners next year.
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The ongoing talent shortage continues to create challenges for channel partners. Here, two channel-centric executives offer some thoughts for addressing those difficulties.
“Future-minded channel organizations are actively looking at DevOps as one of the next practices to drive differentiation and growth. Low code/no code development methodologies will transform solution delivery — slashing engagement time and costs, and thus providing a significant competitive edge. These organizations that build these practices will not only gain new customers, but will attract the next wave of digital-native channel professionals entering the workforce embracing these new approaches. This will become a new source of vibrancy, innovation and growth for organizations.” —Christian Alvarez, senior vice president of worldwide channel sales at Nutanix, a cloud computing provider
“It’s true that the market for talented individuals is competitive, but it’s an exciting time for talent and technology. IT teams are leveraging in-house technology capabilities, such as automation, to reduce dependency on employees for mid-level tasks. This enables employees to focus their time on more strategic needs of the business. However, the job responsibilities are only a piece of the puzzle. Organizations should, and will need to, meet the employee ‘where they are’ to stay competitive. Examples of this can include extending remote work capabilities, increasing compensation, and health and other benefits that are offered.” —Will Milewski, senior vice president, cloud infrastructure and operations at software developer Hyland
“With global staffing shortages, MSPs will need to augment their offerings with AI and machine learning if they want to expand to meet the market opportunity. Gartner sees automation as one of the four key trends which will enable growth and create a scalable and resilient infrastructure for the MSP.” —Mike Walkey, senior vie president of global channels and alliances at enterprise data management software vendor Veritas Technologies
What happens on the world stage affects partners of all kinds, despite their location. Consider some channel predictions from various vendors who are seeing different trends around the world impacting the channel.
“Going green could keep resellers out of the red as ‘carbon net neutral’ takes its place on the request for information. COVID may have pushed environmental issues down the agenda for the last couple of years but with most countries needing to hit a ‘net zero’ by 2050, governments are passing down pressure to reduce emissions onto businesses. … [T]he IT space is one place that businesses will increasingly turn to for savings. While price and service will almost certainly remain king in 2022, resellers that can demonstrate the environmental benefits of the solutions that they offer, and the environmental credentials of their own businesses are likely to see advantages, especially in more commoditized markets.” —Veritas Technologies ’ Mike Walkey
“Supply chain disruption will last at least through 2022, which will force companies to radically rethink their processes. Companies [including partners] that are adaptable and can improvise to lessen the effects of supply-chain disruption are the ones that will survive and even thrive, whereas companies that are too rigid in their processes or not able to think outside of the box will suffer. The focus will shift away from consistency at all costs to doing whatever works to get products out the door.” —Nelson Nahum, CEO of enterprise cloud services provider Zadara
“We will see a lot of activity around China’s Personal Information Protection Law (PIPL) and how it is implemented. China is not likely to tolerate businesses that break the rules, and consequences could be quite significant — ranging from high fees to the suspension of business licenses. The global impact is going to be huge. We expect a lot of activity in Africa, specifically sub-Saharan Africa. There are lots of new security clusters being created there. The new privacy regulations in Nigeria, Kenya and South Africa are like GDPR’s cousin. We’re seeing a global trend of GDPR becoming the basis for other regulations, which is quite interesting.” —Mathieu Gorge, CEO and founder of security firm VigiTrust
“Artificial intelligence is on the rise, and regulation is coming. AI is key to making automated decisions and providing predictive insights at scale, and partners who incorporate AI need to plan now for regulatory challenges.” —Tony Beller, senior vice president of worldwide partner ecosystem at software company TIBCO
It’s not just technologies and regulations that change — the channel does, too. That particular trend will continue throughout 2022, in large part due to the influence of the cloud. Find out which channel predictions executives predict will affect partners of all stripes when it comes to their business models.
“Many partners here are looking to counter the public cloud ‘big guns’ with their own local cloud offerings, with the advantage of cheaper services and local support. This is also spawning new ‘channels within channels’ as service partners offer this through traditional resellers.” —Martin Gibbons, EMEA channel director for data management provider Komprise
“MSPs will play an increasing role in accelerating enterprises’ transition from on-prem to edge cloud, driving the emergence of a cloud provider in every city. Due to issues such as latency and a shortage of equipment, many enterprises don’t want to be dependent on their own data centers and their own people to manage their data. In addition, compliance often dictates where data can be stored. Enterprises are in need of solutions to help them get to a cloud model, and MSPs who are close by can provide those services. … [Also], with technology becoming more fragmented, many enterprises don’t want the hassle of dealing with many vendors and instead want easy solutions. That, along with the increased pressure for on-demand, agile services, will lead more and more enterprises to go with MSPs and other channel partners to put together complete solution packages. … We will see more VARs expanding their services offerings like MSPs, with a focus on providing complete solutions or an as-a-service model.” —Zadara’s Nelson Nahum
“Legacy sales methods and incentive models are quickly becoming a thing of the past. As customers move to consume IT products as a subscription service rather than a one-time purchase event, vendors will face pressure (and opportunity) to align partner incentives with that of the customer’s lifetime journey.” —Nutanix’s Christian Alvarez
“Resellers are going to continue to struggle with margins/top line revenue as hardware declines and multicloud adoption continues to increase. They will be evolving their businesses away from hardware dependency to XaaS.” —Larry Dabrow, North America channel sales leader at Komprise
“A better partner experience breeds better customer experiences. Creating a stronger engagement program for partners equips them with the tools to be the best influencers to customers. In 2022, I expect to see more (and more innovative) engagement programs with an emphasis on optimizing end customer experiences. The cloud, in particular, will drive the need for change at all levels of channel organizations.” —Lana King, vice president of partner programs, training and enablement at UCaaS provider Mitel
“The channel will continue to experience digital expansion, with demand-generation functions continuing to shift toward digital execution. We’re going to see the channel expanding into use cases that solve business problems digitally and building solutions that can then be turned into demand-generation assets. The concept of solving business problems according to use cases will apply across industries. … The channel will play a key role in helping to solve the world’s toughest data challenges.” —TIBCO’s Tony Beller
“More security providers will adopt the role of the channel in their own companies. Channel providers can be the glue to all of the other security tools companies have invested in, and the channel has an opportunity to be a trusted adviser to these companies as they work to integrate various tools.” —Faraz Siraj, vice president of channel sales at insider risk management vendor Code42
“Cloud service brokers (CSB) will become more and more relevant to the cloud and subscription market in 2022. The buyer persona is changing as people want self-serve; partners want self-serve. How do you take cost and complexity out? How do you make it as easy to sell solutions? As self-serve becomes more prevalent, the distributors will start to stand up something similar with CSB as an enablement to their partners. Partners will need to listen to their customers’ requirements, making sure they’re solving the problem with the right solution rather than a solution. The ability to scale the aggregation model is a significant multiplier.” —Daren Finney, senior vice president of global channel sales at Mitel
Speaking of different technologies, on this slide, channel executives talk about the various platforms that will make waves in 2022.
“Analytics and AI initiatives have been a top priority for CIOs for years. 2022 will be the inflection point for most enterprises; there will be significant focus on modernizing their data architectures and implementing a data fabric. There will be great opportunities for channel partners to deliver solutions that allow organizations to unify their data for greater access, trust, and control and this will be one of the hottest segments of the market over the next several years.” —TIBCO’s Tony Beller
“Cloud is a top opportunity driver for MSPs. COVID-19 was a catalyst for enhanced UCaaS, CCaaS and CPaaS services with the hybrid work force demanding richer multimedia. In addition, we will see SMBs shift from on-prem equipment to subscribing to an MSP’s cloud offering due to feature-rich offerings at a lower price point.” —Oracle Cloud
“Third-party marketplaces are going to continue to boom with a trend toward solution-based, turnkey offerings. Running a business in 2022 will be more complicated amidst contemporary challenges like pandemics, global warming and talent shortages, and will continue to drive the call for managed services in areas like security, databases and complex containerization.” —Blair Lyon, vice president of cloud experience at cloud hosting provider Linode
Speaking of different technologies, on this slide, channel executives talk about the various platforms that will make waves in 2022.
“Analytics and AI initiatives have been a top priority for CIOs for years. 2022 will be the inflection point for most enterprises; there will be significant focus on modernizing their data architectures and implementing a data fabric. There will be great opportunities for channel partners to deliver solutions that allow organizations to unify their data for greater access, trust, and control and this will be one of the hottest segments of the market over the next several years.” —TIBCO’s Tony Beller
“Cloud is a top opportunity driver for MSPs. COVID-19 was a catalyst for enhanced UCaaS, CCaaS and CPaaS services with the hybrid work force demanding richer multimedia. In addition, we will see SMBs shift from on-prem equipment to subscribing to an MSP’s cloud offering due to feature-rich offerings at a lower price point.” —Oracle Cloud
“Third-party marketplaces are going to continue to boom with a trend toward solution-based, turnkey offerings. Running a business in 2022 will be more complicated amidst contemporary challenges like pandemics, global warming and talent shortages, and will continue to drive the call for managed services in areas like security, databases and complex containerization.” —Blair Lyon, vice president of cloud experience at cloud hosting provider Linode
What the channel looks like, and how it operates, continues to evolve. As technologies, regulations, social influences, and more, all change, so too does the partner community. Looking ahead to 2022, Channel Futures gathered commentary from a range of partner-centric vendors for some channel predictions. We wanted their thoughts on what the channel should expect for the coming year.
Surprisingly (to us, at least), no one mentioned DE&I initiatives. These efforts have proven a seismic shift within the channel over the past year, from holding industry panels regarding diversity, equity and inclusion, to changing the traditional term “master agent” to “technology solutions broker.”
The channel predictions that did make up leaders’ contributions ranged from the talent shortage to regulatory changes. They piped up about compensation and technology transformation. If you’re curious about what might be in store for your channel organization over the next 12 months, take a few minutes to click through the slideshow above.
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