INDUSTRY EVENT
Convergence of Delegates explore
together on Digital First
Canalys APAC Channels Conference was recently held in Macau, where the channel partners, distributors and vendors attended the event
to understand on how ‘Digital First’ is impacting business in Asia pacific Region. There were various keynote address held on best practices
and the new wave opportunities and challenges faced by the channel partners. With the presence of Technology companies that includes Dell
EMC, Hewlett-Packard Enterprise, HP Inc., Lenovo, Schneider, Polycom, Dropbox, the event described on how the channel programs are
evolving to help partners increase revenues.
More than 900 one-to-one meetings were held throughout the conference and the presence of Global distributors partners in the summit
including Avnet, Westcon Comstor and Ingram Micro made the event a great success.
Steve Brazier, President and CEO - Canalys
Steve Brazier delivers in-depth analysis, targeted trends insights and senior counsel to high-tech decisionmakers. Steve’s expertise spans the full range of the firm’s research areas including mobility, IT infrastructure and
channel strategy. He is recognized in the technology industry as a leading source of distribution channel trends and
routes-to-market strategy. Brazier said on his opening address that Hyper-convergence is here to stay, "This year it
is taking off. However, all the hyper-convergence is just a substitution product. You sell hyperconverged instead
of servers and storages, so it is not as exciting as it made out to be. It is just a different format."
Brazier further added, “It has been a tough year for the channel, reason being in most mature countries,
whether APAC or Europe, it has been a difficult year for the traditional technology areas - servers, storage, PCs,
networking. It has been very hard for companies to find growth. The distributors have turned slightly negative;
they're slightly declining by 1-2 percent, but they had been growing year after year, except 2009, for 15 years.
Overall channel partners are growing but on single digits not double digits that they were over previous years.”
Gianfranco Lanci, Corporate President and Chief Operating Officer – Lenovo
Empowering the digital-first workforce – opportunities for the channel
In the opening address Gianfranco Lanci, Corporate President and COO, Lenovo, said that the channel
industry is going to exist forever and currently Lenovo has 60,000 resellers in Asia Pacific and has plans to add
more to its feather and need to simplify the channel program much more. The opportunity for the channel is still
big. “As much as possible we want to simplify how we run the business together. Currently, we have identified
two areas of growth and they are mobile phones and the data center. 100% of Lenovo’s business is handled by 8
distributors, and the plan is to extend the depth and breadth of the channel network in the country. Last but not
the least, Innovation will become important; but to innovate you need to be financially solid because innovation
is expensive. To do this, we are going to introduce a business portal in Asia.”
Richard Bailey, President, Asia Pacific and Japan Region – HP Inc.
A partner-first company
“The separation of HP has enabled us to move forward more rapidly,” said Richard Bailey, President of Asia
Pacific Japan, HP, Inc. in his keynote address. “HP is transforming the channel program so channel partners can
make more revenues. We are also reinventing the sales platform, and one of the enabling technologies is social
media. We are not only a partner-first company, but also a partner-led company.”Bailey said that opportunities
for channel partners lie in rapid urbanization; changing demographics; hyper globalization; and accelerated
innovation.”
44
November 2016
www.varindia.com