Top Moments from the Record-Smashing Channel Partners Conference & Expo
Most attendees ever. Most speakers ever. Most sponsors and exhibitors ever. And it's only going to grow.
April 15, 2022
![Empowering Women Leaders Panel at CPLV 2022 Empowering Women Leaders Panel at CPLV 2022](https://eu-images.contentstack.com/v3/assets/blt10e444bce2d36aa8/bltd11435dd461eed82/65242fa1c097572e6a78aa45/Empowering-Women-Leaders-Panel-at-CPLV-2022.jpg?width=700&auto=webp&quality=80&disable=upscale)
The president of T-Mobile’s Business Group wants to extend the company’s channel lead in 5G. Callie Field shared customer success stories with the likes of BMW Group and Alaska Airlines to show partners how T-Mobile is opening new opportunities and reaching new targets such as health care. Field hinted at new products T-Mobile is designing for the channel around 5G. Her role at T-Mobile was not lost on the audience as she reports to company CEO Mike Sievert, so this is a company that takes channel seriously.
On a rousing panel surrounding the topic of private equity and stepping into the world of M&A, participants emphasized that there is more to these deals than just spreadsheets and dollar signs – MSPs need to drive smart.
“We’d heard horror stories regarding PE, so we shopped around a lot before diving in anywhere,” said Adam Edwards, CEO of Telarus (second from right, above). “These guys are out there to make money, so they can be ruthless, brutal. A common model is partnering. Picking a PE partner is picking just that – a partner. When I enter into these conversations, I don’t want to just know about the wins these guys have had, I want to hear about times they ate dirt. It’s easy to celebrate a win, but it’s important to determine how someone overcame a challenge. If you pick the right partner, it can be magic.”
The pandemic radically influenced the way MSPs do business. No longer could they rely on past methods of driving sales. Daniel Herrera (second from right) is CIO of TailWinds Technologies. In the MSP Summit session, “Unlock the Secrets of Fast Growth,” he said the pandemic meant rethinking the company’s communication approach.
“One of the things we did on the sales side is that we doubled down. So, I had our sales team start doing a lot of Zoom calls, sending more emails, just picking up the phone and calling prospective clients. And so, we actually added $2 million in revenue during the first nine months [of the pandemic] from an increase in communications standpoint,” said Herrera.
Business teams that are more diverse – whether that’s racially, socioeconomically or educationally – are 35% more profitable than organizations that are not, according to McKinsey & Company.
Mayka Rosales-Peterson is senior program manager, managing partner program at AppSmart. She was part of the panel, “The Business Case on Diverse Talent.”
“The people who are signing the contracts and who are now decision makers are women, Latinos or African American people, right? So, if your organization is not reflecting the communities that it wants to serve or communities that it wants to tap into, it’s a huge issue.”
Janet Schijns, chief revenue officer of consultancy JS Group, seen here in a presentation during the co-located MSP Summit, sat down with us later in the event.
She predicted that the traditional agent channel will see the rise of large firms that own more and more of the customer life cycle, evolving in a way similar to how some VARs evolved to be system integrators. She said agents will need to offer vertical expertise, or at the least expand beyond simply sourcing technology.
“The smaller agency will have to evolve, or frankly, perish. The Dodo bird, the VAR and the small agent all going to be in the same category in a decade,” she said.
During her MSP Summit keynote, “How to Win the Talent War — Or at Least Survive It,” Schijns discussed the staffing challenges that organizations around the world are grappling with in the wake of COVID-19. That means agents, managed service providers, resellers and other partner types have to think differently to attract new employees.
“We are going to have to be hypercompetitive now to win at talent,” said Schijns.
Lucas Salvage (center, above), chief revenue officer of Kairos Data Communications, said many agent firms are beginning to charge for consulting, especially as they move up-market to compete in the enterprise space against professional services giants.
“We are now starting to find that we are coming up against companies like Deloitte or Arthur Andersen, when historically we were going up against a direct sales from a carrier. Your time is valuable, your expertise is incredibly valuable, and my personal feeling is that if you’re doing audits and you’re giving away your expertise, you need to be charging for that.”
Salvage was part of an all-agent panel dubbed, “The Secrets of Agents.”
There simply is no place in the industry where the most powerful technology executives leading the indirect sales channel will appear on the same stage to discuss the channel’s future. This group of leaders spoke about the importance of the entire channel, which is growing in complexity by the day. Tyler Bryson of Microsoft, Danny Jenkens of ThreatLocker, Chris Jones of AT&T and Andrew Sage of Cisco were united on one main point: The channel is growing in importance to their organizations with senior leaders and boards of directors pressing for more growth.
Jones (third from left, above) in particular talked about the importance of the channel focusing on small businesses.
“Small business is where the opportunity is,” he said. “They’re willing to take risks because they don’t have a big, embedded infrastructure. SMBs are entrepreneurs … and there are a lot more of them. A lot of SMBs add up to a large business. If you lose a big business, it’s detrimental. But if you lose a small business, there’s another small business out there.”
“The small and midsize customers are going through this incredible transformation right now,” said Sage, (second from right, above). “SaaS/cloud is opening up opportunities to deploy technology that they never had. They don’t have to buy servers or licenses, or people to install in broom closets. So they’re moving fast and they’re consuming technology at an incredible pace, and this is driving everything … and our company is paying attention to that.”
IBM‘s Kate Woolley and Inhi Cho Suh took to the main stage as part of the co-located MSP Summit. The leaders of IBM’s partner ecosystem sat for a Channel Futures interview to discuss the company’s investment in the MSP market and its future plans.
Woolley and Cho Suh discussed IBM’s $1 billion investment in resources, including marketing and sales support, technical coverage and services expansion. The executives offered one of the most compelling arguments to partner with IBM in years, stressing the value of the company’s ecosystem. They were quick to stress why have made personal decisions to dedicate their futures to the channel. It was a powerful moment.
Woolley, IBM Ecosystem general manager, said doubling revenues from partners within the next three to five years is a top priority.
“This is a renewed focus,” she said. “The amount of time and energy and focus that IBM is spending on the ecosystem, it feels different. And it’s our job to go and bring that to life.”
Former sportswriter turned motivational speaker Don Yaeger inspired attendees to consider “What Makes the Great Ones Great.” He shared stories of spending time with some of the greatest sports figures of all time, but the stories that resonated were less about their achievements on the court and the field than what drove them to be champions.
“Greatness has inner fire,” Yaeger told the audience, offering them inspiration to be great in business and their personal lives.
Intelisys president John DeLozier surprised interviewer Craig Galbraith by sporting an ’80s rock ‘n’ roll wig to start their conversation about the importance of influence in the channel.
DeLozier, Channel Futures’ Channel Influencer of the Year in 2020, and essentially an influence “hall of famer,” sat down for an enlightening discussion about leadership and influence in the channel. He offered advice to leaders for motivating their teams during difficult times and suggested mistakes to avoid.
But he added that leadership and influence don’t just come from the top. He himself has been influenced by the people who work for him.
“Inspiration and influence without worth is short-term,” said DeLozier.
During his keynote, Gary Nugent, Informa Tech’s CEO, traveled from across the pond to deliver a warning to businesses that fail to innovate and a call for the channel to help companies in this area:
“There is no doubt about it, as the world becomes increasingly digital, the barriers to entry are dropping,” he said. “The fierceness of competition is only increasing. And our customers are feeling increasingly under pressure to constantly innovate in an agile, data-driven, intuitive, test-and-learn fashion.”
Those companies that successfully innovate are rising to the top, Nugent said. Those that don’t are feeling an existential threat to their businesses.
Informa Tech is the parent company of Channel Futures and the Channel Partners Conference & Expo.
The Alliance of Channel Women continued its Channel Partners tradition with a networking event and program on Monday night. This was the first time ACW has graced the main stage.
After relating her journey to finding the right work/life balance for her, LiveVox’s MeiLee Langley encouraged other women to follow her lead by simply saying, “You’ve f***ing got this.”
Women and diversity also were at the core of a main-stage discussion featuring women business leaders from some of the biggest names in the channel.
On the subject of women in leadership roles, Comcast Business’ Vivian Chavez (second from left, above) said, “There aren’t enough women at the table.”
In a theater session on the expo floor, Carolyn April, senior director of industry analysis, CompTIA, covered the MSP market and the trends that will shape their future.
“For the most part, we’re seeing optimism compared to what we saw two years ago. When we did our study in 2020, pessimism levels were really high. Some MSPs were either nervous about the future or just unhappy. This year, there is certainly more optimism – people are starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel. There is still some pessimism, but I think some partners are just gun-shy; they’re not sure what to expect in the future. But, by and large, the bounce back is very real.”
During the CIO Agenda panel session, RingCentral CISO Heather Hinton (second from left, above) offered advice to partners looking for her business. Hinton said she looks for partners “selling to solve the problem, not selling what was on the truck.”
Meantime, in the early days of the pandemic, most of the existing partners serving Seminole Hard Rock services were proactive and able to address its needs. That’s according to CISO Mike Novak (second from right, above), also speaking during the CIO panel session. But he said nearly one-third were not up for the task.
“We needed to innovate no matter what,” Novak said.
During the CIO Agenda panel session, RingCentral CISO Heather Hinton (second from left, above) offered advice to partners looking for her business. Hinton said she looks for partners “selling to solve the problem, not selling what was on the truck.”
Meantime, in the early days of the pandemic, most of the existing partners serving Seminole Hard Rock services were proactive and able to address its needs. That’s according to CISO Mike Novak (second from right, above), also speaking during the CIO panel session. But he said nearly one-third were not up for the task.
“We needed to innovate no matter what,” Novak said.
That headline isn’t hyperbole. This week’s Channel Partners Conference & Expo and co-located MSP Summit broke just about every record on the books.
It’s no secret that most of the channel has thrived during the pandemic. The shift to work-from-anywhere and now the continuing – and seemingly permanent – adjustment to hybrid work strategies has fueled a revolution in technology and, as a result, technology sales — particularly in the indirect sales channel.
Therefore, as the channel continues to grow, so does the world’s largest independent channel event. After registering 6,200 for CP Expo – matching our pre-pandemic record – just five months ago, we shattered that number this week. More than 7,400 of you signed up this time around — that’s nearly a 20% increase. Nowhere was it more evident than in the keynote room and conference education sessions. And of course the expo hall, where partners explored new business opportunities with suppliers.
Speaking of the expo hall, more than 320 sponsors and exhibitors represented at this week’s event. That’s a record. We also blew away our all-time record for number of speakers, as more than 200 shared their industry insight with nuggets that partners can take home to improve their businesses.
It sounds like very few of you missed the event, but in case you did, we’re here for you. We assembled what our edit team thinks were some of the most memorable moments from our keynote stage. Check out our slideshow above for highlights from what was our most remarkable event ever.
Not enough? You can see all of our Channel Partners Conference & Expo coverage here. And keep your eyes glued to that page as we will add more image galleries from the show soon.
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