SolutionVue and TSD Resources

CF: SolutionVue, your sales assessment platform, got an update recently. It was interesting to hear from [Select Communications CEO]  Jerry Goldman about how he thinks AI-based sofware will be more of a differentiator for the TSDs/TSBs in the future. What role are software platforms going to play for companies like Telarus and Avant going forward? In the future, is that going to move to be table stakes? How is that going to shape whom the partners work with, and how often they work with a TSB?

AE: One hundred percent it is going to influence a partner. First of all, their partners are very savvy consumers. And they’re going to engage first – No. 1 – if they actually trust that TSD, if they trust that TSD is going to support them, especially when the chips are down. That’s one of the things they depend on the TSD for: clout, being able to advocate for them when they need an escalation or need some help, or whatever it is. Because remember, these businesses are not like a restaurant where week to week, month to month you have good seating, good traffic and everything else. These are businesses that are built over years and decades. They get their value over decades.

So partners are looking for someone they trust first and foremost. Only after trust exists are they looking at the incremental value that can be added, and that value in terms of giving them insights and direction, whether it’s the sorting and vetting of new providers or education around new technology. It comes in different formats. And if you can give them insights and leverage the breadth of transactions that go through a TSD and turn those insights around, that comes in different forms.

So while we talk about tools like SolutionVue, 100% that’s a game changer for partners of being able to have a guided selling process for their customers and to look good in front of customers, having confidence in selling a new type of products and also getting access to insights that are produced by our engineers. That’s just one way in which those insights are delivered. Those insights are also delivered directly by engineers. They’re going to engage with a partner directly and have a one-off conversation. It’s also delivered in tools like our product matrices, if you want to look at which product interfaces with which platform, or whatever you need to know about the product. Each tool is a different way of delivering insights into quantitative and qualitative data.

My belief is that if a TSD is not leveraging that data for the benefit of their partner, they’re going to have a hard time going forward, because while a TSD may have that trust of the partner, they must also continue to add value and do things for a partner they cannot do for themselves and data insights will be table stakes.