FINAL WORD
Four hot survival tips
for channel partners
Veteran channel builder, Osama AlHaj-Issa at
Aruba HPE, deep dives into four survival tips
for channel partners.
C
hannel partners need to align
with vendors that have high
business growth potential, provide
healthy margins and have cutting edge
technology. Here are some survival tips
for channel partners in the face of present
day challenges:
1. Do not hold back investments
Channel partners must be optimistic about
the future, despite political uncertainty in
some countries in the Middle East. The
Middle East in particular has a higher
percentage of youth and so mobility is a
necessity for the new workforce and the
young society that it represents. Mobility
is a big trend that is sweeping the Middle
East and despite political uncertainty in
some countries, the demand for mobility
will only increase.
2. New technology first
mover advantage
Channel partners that develop early
capabilities in new technologies will be
the ones that will be most successful. For
example, in the mobility domain, Mobility
Engagement solution for public-facing
enterprises is a revolutionary technology.
This is a technology that every enterprise
that serves public in one way or another
has endorsed immediately and requested
to test in their premises.
Mobility Engagement solution is
comprised of several components such as
way finding solution, mobility analytical
engine, and targeted advertising system.
Customers such as hospitals, large
educational institutes, malls, airports,
stadiums and similar organizations
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need this solution to enhance customer
service, satisfaction and loyalty. Mobility
Engagement technology has huge revenue
generation potential if utilized well.
The cloud is also a big trend that is
accelerating. The channel will need to be
able to implement cloud based solutions
in public, private and hybrid cloud
infrastructure modes to meet the varying
needs of customers. IoT is another trend
that is gaining momentum. The channel
should build competencies in IoT analytics
and trend analysis solutions and securing
IoT based devices at the network edge.
3. Marketing mission critical
for success
Marketing has been elevated to a mission-
critical status for channel partners and the
vendors they represent. To survive and
thrive, channel partners must effectively
implement marketing using a variety of
tightly integrated outbound and inbound
marketing tactics, all focused on building
awareness and generating sales leads.
Channel partners should reconsider
marketing and primarily there are four
reasons for that.
1. First, sourcing or selection of IT related
products or services has shifted.
2. Second, competition has intensified.
Now channel partners face greater
competition from local, regional,
national, on-line and non-traditional
competitors.
3. Third, marketing has changed
dramatically. The modern marketing
mix focuses on search authority,
thought leadership and lead generation,
Osama AlHaj-Issa is Regional Channel Director,
Middle East and Turkey at Aruba HPE
and importantly, is delivering dramatic
and measurable results.
4. Fourth, historically channel partners
tend to spend less time, effort, resources
and investment in marketing than other
industries. But for the factors above,
now must make marketing a higher
priority, or risk failure.
4. Successful vendor partnerships
Understanding customer needs and
working closely with vendor partners’ sales
and engineering team to build the best
solution to match or exceed these needs
means getting the business closer to them.
Readiness and early engagement are the
two basic components for a successful
partnership. This ensures customers of
high quality delivery of the proposed
solution and services. It also maximizes
channel margin since services usually
bring bigger margins to our partners.
One of the biggest challenges facing
the channel today is managing cash flows
and receivables since it impacts working
capital. This calls for most effective
financial planning and management and
organizations that are able to do so will
eventually succeed.
Issue 11
INTELLIGENT TECH CHANNELS