Your Partners Are Listening…. Don’t Bore Them

By

If you’ve read our articles over the years, you will have noticed we try to make them interesting and informative without overtly promoting our own services. So it feels strange for me to write this article because I will be blatantly promoting our services at the end. Don’t worry – this article is still going … Continued

Y2K Ain’t What It Used To Be

By

When people refer the “halcyon days” of the IT industry, they are usually thinking of three things – the early 80’s when PCs were $6,000 at 30% margin, the early 90’s when MDF meant “Money for Decadent Functions” or the late 90’s when customers spent more money on technology in 6 months than any other … Continued

This Channel Thingy Is Getting Complex

By

Channel used to be easy. I don’t mean easy for the average man in the street (who thinks it’s a brand of perfume or something you change with a remote). I mean it was easy for those of us actually in the channel. We all understood how it worked. Vendors sold to distributors, who then … Continued

Are Service Providers Partners Or Customers?

By

I often conduct strategy discussions with vendors who sell through Service Providers, and at some point during the meeting, I’ll ask the question – are Service Providers (ie. Managed Service Providers, Telcos, Cloud providers, etc) your Customer or your Partner? The answer is usually something like “well sometimes they’re customers and sometimes they’re partners but … Continued

What A Difference 10 Years Makes

By

As we pass the 10 year milestone as Channel Dynamics, we couldn’t help but reflect on how our industry has evolved over the last decade. Technology may advance every year (faster in some years than others) but it’s only when we stop and look at it over a period of time that we realise how … Continued

Profitable Partners Are Loyal Partners

By

It’s the end of the quarter, and we need to make the number. So out come the promos! We’ve all heard them before. “Buy 4, get 1 Free”. “Take 2 months stock, and I’ll give you a discount”. “Drop your margin by a couple of points to help us get this deal, and we’ll owe … Continued

Is There A Need For The Channel In The Cloud?

By

There is no doubt that customers are starting to examine how they procure technology, and opting for a Cloud model rather than the traditional CapEx model. However, while this shift may provide a range of benefits for the customer and potentially the channel, it also brings with it some fundamental changes to the way technology … Continued

Enable Your Partners Till They’re Unconscious

By

In a previous article, I wrote about the parallels between recruiting people and recruiting partners, and how the principles we apply to recruiting staff are equally applicable to recruiting partners. Today, we look at the parallels between developing staff and enabling partners. Over the years, the “Conscious Competence” Model has become a popular and insightful … Continued

Innovate, Partner or Perish

By

I’m not normally an early adopter, but I was one of the first people to buy a Windows mobile phone. And I loved it. It let me receive email, synced with my diary and contained all my contact details. Then Apple released the iPhone. And it took me a few years (like I said, I’m … Continued