Talking heads
Craig Hume, Utopia Computers, Managing Director:
Sarah Shields, Dell, Vice President and General Manager UK & Ireland: The UK channel is as strong now as I’ve ever seen it. From our perspective, we are seeing growth across all our key lines of business indicating that there are plenty of opportunities for our Channel partners looking to increase revenue and a hunger from customers looking at digital transformation. We all need to be focused on delivering the right solutions during this growth phase. Both vendors and partners need to be clear on how digital transformation should be delivered and help customers with their multi cloud/ hybrid cloud solutions and focus on longterm workload solutions that need to be addressed. Without a doubt, the biggest driver in the next 12 months is about making digital transformation a reality. With GDPR coming into force, it’s a perfect opportunity to address and assess how to futureproof customers’ businesses and make them secure. Anyone not talking security is making a big mistake. Disruptors are what the market is all about right now. New names, new brands, new technologies that change the way we work and play. The Channel is perfect for disruptors to gain momentum, traction and scale – but beware, big organisations such as Dell EMC are taking disruption very seriously too as we are investing $4.5b a year in innovation. I’ve never seen our Channel so exciting! Right now, the Channel is doing exceptionally well and growing every day, so things are looking good.
www.pcr-online.biz
28-32 PCRTalking Heads_v2.indd 2
While I think it would be wrong to say the UK IT Channel is strong, given the sad news around Maplin and the continuing political uncertainties that lie ahead, I would say that the overwhelming majority of the conversations I have are positive with strong desire to continue to grow and innovate. The skills gap is always going to be difficult, I take my hat off to the likes of VIP who are doing amazing work by investing in a young team to bring new people in to the Channel that could end up being some of the top talent in any one of our businesses. I worry GDPR is also going to hit some hard, possibly too hard to recover. I speak to resellers and many are not prepared and have decided it’s too confusing to be bothered with, this is not great news and I fear that those who have chosen to put their head in the sand have not only missed an opportunity to be seen as a leader in this area, but will possibly be on the wrong side of the ICO when something happens to their data. Over the next 12 months it will be particularly interesting to see where blockchain goes, the effect it has on the GPU and PSU markets and how vendors address it. Will the likes of Nvidia release mining specific cards as rumoured or just ride the wave? Also the battle between Intel and AMD continues, so it’ll be interesting to see what happens as AMD are now back in the game. For those looking to get started, I think that in many ways it is now easier for small startups to break into the Channel than ever before. I believe if a startup has a global mind-set, a killer idea and the right people on the bus, the sky’s the limit. The important thing is to always be open, honest and keep talking. Utopia has built outstanding relationships by always just telling our partners the way that it is, not trying to pretend we are something we are not.
“We would all benefit from carving out sufficient time to be able to talk to one another” Jeremy Nash, Centerprise International
May 2018 | 29
24/04/2018 16:26