By jeff_oheir_1

Expanding vendor relationships, developing new engineering skills, reaching new buyers, selling new solutions.

Those challenges could apply to almost any new offering VARs have launched during the last 15 years. This year, they happen to relate to IoT commercial applications and the difficulties of forming a practice that can combine sensors; actuators; data capture, distribution, management and analytics; Wi-Fi infrastructures; and rock-solid security and privacy solutions.

But with commercial-related IoT applications expected to pump between $4 and $11 trillion into the global economy in the next 10 years, the payoff could be worth the trouble for VARs.

“There’s always a challenge whenever you try to expand offerings,” said John DeSarbo, principal at ZS Associates, a firm that specializes in marketing and sales solutions for the IT industry. “You still have to find new vendors, develop new relationships.”

Forming new vendor relationships is probably the top challenge VARs face in developing IoT offerings, an issue we covered in a previous story. Here are some of DeSarbo’s insights into the other challenges, as well as how VARs can overcome them:

Developing New Engineering Skills: DeSarbo suggests VARs build teams (through inside employee development or outside hires) with traditional engineering skills to handle the operations technology—the implementation and integration of sensors, actuators and similar devices behind material handling solutions—needed for IoT applications.

Marketing New Capabilities/Selling New Solutions: This essentially boils down to the importance of building a VAR’s own brand, something the channel has been preaching for years and is still needed. It’s especially important for VARs trying to establish their companies as the trusted provider of new solutions, such as cloud or IoT.

“Customers are skeptical when a solution provider they think of as their ‘HP VAR’ or ‘Microsoft reseller’ claims to be able to implement IOT solutions,” DeSarbo said. “IoT is where the cloud was five years ago; there’s a lot of hype and a lot of skepticism.”

VARs can overcome that skepticism by clearly documenting and communicating the value and ROI every IoT solution they present to clients.

“The absolute wrong thing to do is to say you’re into IoT without being able to back up the claim with actual implementations. There’s a lot of rolling of eyes now at IoT,” DeSarbo said. “Solution providers need to tell more stories about their applications that leveraged IoT. They have to tie those in with their real business impact economic value.”

Reaching New Buyers: As many VARs already know, the people in charge of signing off on new technology solutions don’t always work directly in the IT division. IoT is no different. The best solution is to hire sales associates who have relationships with the key players in the targeted vertical.

“In a manufacturing company, the individual who purchases an IOT solution might be a vice president of manufacturing or distribution. In a healthcare provider, the buyer may be the VP of clinical operations or VP of hospital administration,” he said. “Many solution providers typically have not engaged with these roles/functions in the past and need to expand their customer relationships.”

Jeff O’Heir is a freelance journalist who covers emerging technologies. He can be reached at [email protected]