Technology Reseller v43

01732 759725 26 Opinion Sen Chandaka, Vendor Alliance Development Manager Europe at Nuvias Group, highlights three megatrends influencing growth in the IT channel now and in the future Megatrends Where, then, should channel partners focus their efforts in order to prosper over the next few years? I believe there are three main megatrends that will generate significant opportunities in the years to come: 1 The transition from transactional relationships to true partnerships As businesses adjust their digital transformation strategies, the channel must tailor its professional services offerings accordingly. For example, partners face increasing competition from cloud giants as businesses migrate to cloud infrastructure in the constant search for agility and efficiency. In fact, Gartner recently revised its outlook for end-user public cloud spending significantly upwards to 21.7% growth and a total forecast value of $482B in FY22 3 . This upward trend is expected to continue until FY26 and is an opportunity for partners to deliver solutions and services that are focused on helping their end customers on-board and off-board data across multiple public and private cloud providers. The first consideration for partners, therefore, must be to evolve their discussions with their customers from asking ‘what technology do you need?’ to a more strategic discussion around ‘what digital transformation projects are currently underway?’. After all, focusing on business outcomes is critical to understanding an organisation and developing a strategic technological roadmap together. The accelerated adoption of the ‘anything as a service’ (XaaS) model is central to this role shift. As budgets are reallocated from infrastructure LoBs towards applications and data, with corresponding consolidation of existing technology stacks, resellers can play an important role in managing customers’ infrastructure so that it delivers maximum value. Furthermore, through offering an XaaS model on a subscription basis, businesses can consume partner professional services in an elastic manner, just as they do with public and private clouds. Partners embracing this model can have a significant first-mover advantage in the market and help nurture long-term customer relationships. 2 Cybersecurity: a top priority One certainty in this turbulent period is that cybersecurity is becoming a main priority for any business pursuing a digital transformation strategy. Another perspective to consider is that businesses can also experience cybersecurity attacks via their managed service providers or suppliers, which has resulted in cybersecurity policies being much broader in scope than ever. With 91% of UK CEOs rating cyber threats amongst the major concerns facing them in 2020, 6% more than the global average, this is clearly a big opportunity and one that has caught the attention of partners, 82% of whom rate cybersecurity as the biggest growth prospect for the channel in 2021. Organisations are likely to continue to invest in cybersecurity as hybrid working capabilities look set to become a mainstay for businesses going forward. Not only does this allow for more flexibility for the workforce but according to a recent global Accenture survey 4 , 63% of organisations have made hybrid working a strategic priority; 85% of the workforce of these companies say that they plan to stay with these employers for a long time. This increased reliance on a communication stack brings multiple new threat vectors to organisations. In fact, between February and May 2020 alone, more than half a million people were globally affected by breaches in which the personal data of video conferencing users was stolen or sold on the dark web 5 . Worse still is that data breaches take up to nine months on average to be uncovered, leaving a very long time period for attackers to exploit security vulnerabilities before effective safeguards are put in place. No longer can infrastructure, security, communications and policies be considered in a siloed manner. From a channel perspective, this allows for a unique combination of secure communications technology stacks that can be offered together with customised professional services for each end- customer. This is one channel megatrend that will be around for quite some time to come. When Nuvias polled channel partners at the end of 2020, there was an air of optimism, with almost two thirds (63%) expecting business growth of more than 5% – and 43% expecting growth of more than 10%. Almost one year later, it’s time to take the pulse of the European channel, to see if the signs of optimism are still prevalent, where some of the focus has shifted and what the latest challenges are shaping up to be. All in all, 2021 has been another year of uncertainty for businesses, with vaccine rollouts tempered by the spread of additional Covid variants and rolling lockdowns across EMEA. Against this challenging backdrop, organisations have continued to invest in the digital transformation of their existing businesses, presenting great potential and opportunities for channel partner growth. In PWC’s 24th annual Global CEO survey 1 conducted earlier this year, a record 76% of CEOs said they expected the global economic outlook to improve over the next 12 months, up from a pandemic- era low of 22% in 2020. Just under half of CEOs were planning increases of 10% or more in their digital transformation initiatives in 2021. The increased focus on digital transformation delivers a perfect storm of opportunity for channel partners who are willing to transform as quickly, or even quicker, than their customers. Most organisations will continue to rely on partners for technical expertise and infrastructure to support their business initiatives, since all but the largest organisations have challenges building up these skill sets and transformation teams in house. That said, there are some headwinds to navigate. In its 2021 predictions, Forrester projected a 24% decline in the growth of hyperscale public cloud by 2022 due to a maturing market; and IDC forecast 2 that 51% of software revenue would come from recurring business models. As organisations become more mature in their processes and initiatives around digital transformation, they will most likely switch towards driving efficiency in existing projects rather than rushing headlong into new investment areas. Continued... Sen Chandaka What’s next for partners? Through offering an XaaS model on a subscription basis, businesses can consume partner professional services in an elastic manner, just as they do with public and private clouds