Agents Will Move Further Up-Market

Nicole Steele, director of global channel marketing and enablement at Aryaka Networks, said the overall channel has gained traction with larger customers.

“The channel overall has moved upmarket. Deals and opportunities are becoming more complex with enterprise customers in the networking and connectivity space. The vast majority of larger customers are going to an IT advisor who has channel relationships in place with dozens of technology providers,” Steele told Channel Futures.

Steele said Aryaka’s pipeline is 10 times larger than it was a year ago. She attributed that part to rising demand for cloud-based and security-focused offerings. 

“We’re seeing more opportunities in SASE and SD-WAN, especially over the past two years since the pandemic began and cloud-based networks with comprehensive security solutions in place are a requirement and no longer just an option,” she said.

But moving up-market doesn’t come at the expense of SMB. Channel Futures wrote in its latest Mega Channel Trends that suppliers are more and more looking to smaller businesses as they navigate macroeconomic factors. And many partners, especially MSPs, see SMB as a safe haven. Many agents sell to SMBs, and some plan to expand that base. Others feel that marketplaces will replace their procurement services for smaller customers.

There also remains the question of where a company is focusing its overall go-to-market strategy and where it is focusing its channel strategy. In the case of VMware, its purchaser Broadcom plans to focus its direct sales force on its largest 600 accounts and leave the smaller customers to partners. But trends are a bit more murky in the telco space. Agents report that the ILECs are no longer as likely to lock enterprise accounts from partners. Moreover, one carrier recently significantly cut its enterprise sales team. Although that may mean the vendor is eyeing SMBs for its direct team, the enterprise door may be as open as it ever was for the channel.