The Future

CF: What do you see happening in the TSD space in the next two years? What do you see happening? Where does the Avant want to be?

CW: The channel got a spotlight turned on in the last few years. It hit at all levels – the TSDs down to the trusted advisors. And so I think that was a validation for a lot of work that people had done for years. We knew how powerful this channel was, in terms of a go-to-market motion. The vendors know it. It was no secret in our world. But I think once the spotlight kind of got cast on it, it changed the dynamic a little bit. [The market said] ‘Oh, shit, this group of people – they know how to sell.’

You amped the the excitement around it. And that’s what happens in industry like this when you start to get investment money flowing in. I think that in the next few years, it’s the next frontier. It’s continuing to continuing to innovate into the next generation of products and services and building a platform that enables your trusted advisors to evolve with those changes. I think that’s the focus. And I think that has to be the focus, because security is not going to slow down. This is the next frontier. Next year, we’ll be talking about our number one through five security vendors, just like we are every year on CCaaS and UCaaS now. In the old days, it was cloud and it was WAN. You’re just shifting the categories, but the continued evolution is not going to slow down. As we’ve gotten access to more resources, and as some of these consolidations occurred, it’s continuously being on that cutting edge of technology. And I think that’s where the focus is going to be for Avant.