FEATURE
Value creation is another critical element for the channel as the traditional approach of competing on hardware margins is now just a race to the bottom.” Mark De Simone Delinea
but there are a lot of other factors gaining importance today. Partners need transparency right from deal registration through to the entire sales process between them, their distributor, and vendors. They are at the front line in an opportunity, so it is natural for them to expect a streamlined in-depth training programme for their technical team members from their OEMs, to ensure that their team is well equipped while presenting the solution to their customers.” Concurring with Ghaffar, Mark De Simone, regional director, MEA at Delinea, says, partners are greatly aided by vendors and distributors, and this helps them to rapidly ramp up their skill sets on new solutions, 32
CHANNEL INSIGHTS MIDDLE EAST | ISSUE 1 / 2022
enabling them to shorten their time to market. “Value creation is another critical element for the channel as the traditional approach of competing on hardware margins is now just a race to the bottom. “Instead, partners are looking to differentiate themselves by building world-class professional services practices. Having support from vendors and distributors such as specialised trainings that enable them to strengthen their professional services offering is perhaps the largest need of the channel, as it then allows partners to deliver complex projects,” he says. According to Hady, four to five years ago, partners had different expectations from vendors. They were looking for things like consistency, access to tech resources, MDF, rebates, deal registration, an account manager and so on, from partner programmes. “Today, besides consistency, they want to have a joint go-to-market business analysis where each partner is managed and treated differently based on what services they can provide. They want to be acknowledged by the vendor, have access to all the resources and incentivised depending on what they can specifically offer – delivery services, support services, post sales services etc. So, it’s not just the matter of wanting a certain percentage from ‘selling a box’ anymore,” she explains. Designing digital futures Partners must invest in their own digital-led cloud-first futures to be in a strong position to help customers navigate theirs. So, how can they do this to effectively leverage market prospects? Ghaffar believes it is by adopting a new line of business and beginning the transition to a cloud-first model. He says, “There is a massive opportunity ahead because cloud services are rewriting the rules of the business. They open doors for partners to recurring revenue
streams and a sustainable business model. They can integrate multiple products and their services into said model and be innovative in their approach to differentiate themselves from others. Customers today are becoming more open to outsourcing their services and partners should leverage this as an opportunity.” De Simone adds, “The key to a digital-led cloud first future is to embrace the reality that the business model of a partner will evolve from that of traditional integration and support, to a MSSP / cloud model delivered via public clouds in a fully secure service play. “This is a tall order in terms of SLAs, contracts, and migration activities. It also requires channel to keep their clients’ best interests in mind by being neutral and advising customers as to whether an on-premises recurring contract, or a cloud service delivered over three different clouds is the right fit for their organisation.” The adoption of as-a-service and managed services solutions have exponentially grown over the past two years. In fact, Samer Semaan, channel manager, Middle East at Pure Storage, says, “Some early adopters in the channel are claiming that around 75 percent of their revenue is now being driven by managed services at the expense of ‘traditional’ reseller methods. This trend will continue to grow and evolve in 2022, and we will see bigger year-on-year growth in as-aservice adoption than ever before. “This is being driven largely by end-users, who are asking more questions of resellers about cost efficiency, flexibility and user experience, driven by a need to be more agile following the challenges of the past two years. This is why, 2022 will be the year of as-a-service.” To sum up, channel partners have to continue being bold and playing to their strengths while also exploring new market opportunities to ensure success and growth in the digital modern age.