Agents Ponder the Future of the Technology Adviser Model

… agent model are no longer what they once were.

Marko Spremo: Much like the VAR model changed from traditional VAR to systems integrator, the agent model is transitioning from brokering “simple” services such as network transport and voice to helping clients drive business outcomes by consulting around more complex services. The traditional services are becoming commoditized, and agents must become much more technically astute to help clients implement and utilize new technologies to drive their clients’ business objectives and outcomes. With the changes, the market opportunity for agents can move from focusing mostly on SMBs to expanding to enterprise/global targets.

Bluewave’s Marko Spremo

CF: What’s one part of the legacy agent/broker model that you don’t think will exist in five years or be particularly common?

MS: As more technologies are required for a client to meet their business objectives, it may become more challenging to present value to a client by simply transacting/brokering a deal between a provider and client. This model will always exist in the marketplace, but it will become more difficult to succeed without providing value-added service and expertise.

DN: As service providers and marketplace providers create digital bundled and unbundled “self-service” procurement options, many clients will begin buying directly from these providers, forcing agents to find new ways to add value in order to remain relevant. For many agents who haven’t established their own value added services, this new buying trend could be problematic and likely will further drive agent consolidation in our industry. In order for agents to differentiate themselves in the marketplace, they will need to have a unique value-added service offering that clients either can’t or don’t want to perform themselves.

In recent years, we have seen an increasing number of agents offer services outside their traditional scope including: network monitoring, Tier 1 helpdesk, TEMs type services, etc. It is imperative that we educate ourselves as agents, on not only new technologies, but the underlying cultural changes that are impacting our clients and ensure that our service offerings reflect what’s most important to them. Traditional agents who can’t differentiate their services will likely not exist in the next 10 years.

RJ: Sourcing revenue and not managing the desired IT cost and performance outcomes via data-driven decisions. The decisions IT teams will make five years from now will be far more data-driven and industry-specific. What I often tell agents looking to sell or merge is you have two assets today, and tomorrow you will have one. Today, you have the value of your customer data that is going into the systems build and your BoB (“book of business”) value, both of which are driving seller economics and investor value. This will not be the case in five years.

CF: Many companies making this pivot are backed by private equity or have a headcount of more than 30 people. Is there a chasm opening up between the partners that have the size and capital to build extra services and hire more people and the smaller shops?

RJ: Building a self-sustaining agent business has multiple points of influx, which require significant investments in people, process and systems along with being expensive and extremely time consuming. This is what is driving the value of …