Changing Channels

Episode 79: Ingram Micro’s Eric Hembree on Limitless IoT Opportunities

The Internet of Things (IoT) is transforming nearly every aspect of the commercial and consumer worlds. Through sensors, autonomous systems, and analytics applications, IoT is bringing automation and digital control to businesses, government agencies, and homes at an unprecedented scale. In 2019, businesses will spend more than $745 billion on IoT systems and services. By 2025, the world will have 75 to 125 billion IoT devices connected to the Internet. And that’s only the beginning. While IoT presents a tremendous opportunity for vendors and solution providers alike, the latter has been slow to act on this emerging opportunity, which is why distributor Ingram Micro is dedicating resources and support to help partners develop IoT practices. Eric Hembree, director of IoT at Ingram Micro, is leading the charge in developing the IoT channel. Hembree joins POD2112 to discuss the current and future state of the IoT market and channel.

 

Episode 78: Special Edition: Evolving Channels in the Digital Age

Channel chiefs know they have to adapt or die in a technology market undergoing rapid and continuous change. Vendors are taking different approaches to channel transformation, but all have common characteristics that involve data analytics, cultural evolution, innovative compensation models, and new partner types and models.

At the annual Channel Focus North America, the premier channel executive event produced by Baptie & Co., 2112 CEO and Pod2112 host Larry Walsh moderated a panel on channel transformation in the digital transformation age. The panel featured four seasoned channel leaders who brought different perspectives to the channel transformation challenge. In this special edition of Pod2112 features highlights of the discussion with Alyssa Fitzpatrick of Microsoft, Nick Tidd of Poly, Darren Bibby of DocuSign, and Chris Jones of AT&T.

Episode 77: Steelcase’s Jennifer McCready on Smart Office Furniture Channels

Steelcase’s Jennifer McCready on Smart Office Furniture Channels

Office furniture is big business, with companies ranging from SMBs to enterprises spending more than $11 billion annually on workstations, desks, chairs and other appointments necessary to operate a contemporary workplace. Many people think of office furniture as inert, a necessity that’s part of the operational infrastructure. However, office furniture is increasingly influencing or influenced by technology. Office workers need furnishing that enables, complements, and enhances the functionality of technology – everything from desktop computers to notebooks to displays to collaboration and teleconferencing equipment. As PCs replaced typewriters, office furniture manufacturers amended their designs to accommodate the digital devices. Today, they and their dealers are collaborating with technology companies and solution providers to integrate technology and furniture to create holistic, flexible, and productive work environments. Jennifer McCready, manager of global channel development at office furniture manufacturer Steelcase joins Pod2112 to talk about the evolution of office furniture and the potential for crossover collaboration in the technology channel.

Episode 76: VMware’s Jenni Flinders on Transforming for the Hybrid World

Businesses are increasingly less interested in the features and functions of their IT equipment and software and more concerned about their experiences and the outcomes coming from their technology investments. Hybrid cloud computing is one of the biggest segments seeing this shift in customer expectations for better outcomes. VMware is seeing big gains from hybrid cloud computing, as it continues to shift its focus away from being the virtualization company that delivers hypervisors to a facilitator of cloud operations and management. A significant part of that shift is in the way VMware is transforming its channel program, partner relationships, go-to-market enablement, and incentives. Jenni Flinders, vice president, and global channel chief at VMware, is driving an ongoing channel transformation effort to enable partners to perform better in the outcome-based hybrid cloud computing market. Flinders joins Pod2112 to share how VMware is approaching channel transformation and how she sees the channel’s future unfolding.

Episode 75: Crowdstrike’s Fernando Quintero on Business Development in Latin America

In the global IT market, Latin America is lumped into the “rest of the world” category that contributes less than 10% of spending. Overall, the 48 Latin America countries and territories contribute less than 4% to global IT spending, making it a relatively small market.

Nevertheless, Latin America – a composite of South America, Central America and the Caribbean Islands – is a massive market opportunity. The region is home to more than 650 million people, two of the largest economies in the world – Brazil and Mexico, and $10.5 trillion in economic activity annually. The tremendous labor pool and abundant natural resources make Latin America a prime growth opportunity.

Doing business in Latin America isn’t easy, though. Political and economic instability, corruption, regressive import laws, complicated tax codes, high crime areas, and poor infrastructure makes Latin America look like a difficult – if not undesirable – place to do business.

Fernando Quintero, the vice president of Latin America at security vendor Crowdstrike, knows Latin America. A native of Venezuela, Quintero worked in around the Latin America market much of his career. He was a sales representative in Latin America and the Caribbean for Compaq, ran Latin American channels for McAfee, and oversaw Latin America as part of his role as the Americas channel chief at McAfee. Now, he’s developing the Latin America sales and channel go-to-market operation for Crowdstrike.

Quintero joins Pod2112 to share his insights and experiences in developing viable and thriving channel operations in the challenging but lucrative Latin America technology market.

Episode 74: Ingram Micro’s Paul Bay on the Evolving Value of Distribution

If vendors are the suppliers of technology goods and services, and partners are the feet on the street, the distribution is the backbone of the entire go-to-market value chain. Traditionally, distribution served a valuable role in providing the warehousing and logistics that simplified inventory management for vendors and provided easy access to products for solution providers. No longer, though, as distributors are investing heavily in evolving their capabilities to become influences and catalysts of the end customer experience. Through investments in cloud computing, technical support, and professional services, distributors are anticipating market needs and helping vendors and partners develop new solutions and ply new routes to market. Paul Bay, executive vice president and group president of the Americas at Ingram Micro joins Pod2112 to discuss how the distribution segment of the technology industry is evolving its value proposition, and the role distributors will play in future go-to-market strategies.

Episode 73: Konica Minolta on Transforming Copier Dealers into MSPs

Photocopiers and multifunction devices will remain fixtures of the office as long as the printed page remains. However, the days of the photocopier dealer are waning. It’s getting harder for dealers to remain viable selling and supporting photocopiers, which is why many have adopted IT managed services as a means for extending their value proposition.

Copier dealers have an advantage that many of their IT cousins don’t: A total view into the business operations of the customer. And that insider view enables copiers to identify technology needs, recommend solutions and deliver services. Today, the average channel partner earns more than 20 percent of their income from managed services, and the share of revenue derived from services will continue to grow as more customers adopt and expand with the IT as a service model. It’s truly a huge opportunity for all partners, but copier dealers in particular.

For the copier dealer channel, transformation isn’t so much an opportunity, but an imperative. As more businesses become digital, they move forward to a paperless environments. In fact, the printer technology segment has seen continuous decline in printed pages for the past decade. Managed services isn’t just about extending copier dealer value, but providing a pathway to renewed relevancy and viability.

Like many printer and copier vendors, Konica Minolta is working to help traditional dealers transform their legacy business models to adopt and extend into IT managed services. In a strategy that builds on adjacencies to its core photocopier and print business, Konica Minolta is providing copier dealers with the resources, training and support that enables them to participate in the managed services segment.

Sam Errigo, senior vice president of business intelligence services at Konica Minolta, joins Pod2112 to talk about the need for copier dealers to adopt managed services and what resources are available to help them make the transition from the static support to automated services.

Episode 72: Ingram Micro’s Renee Bergeron on 10 Years of Cloud Computing

Cloud computing dominates the IT industry as more vendors, partners, and customers adopt cloud-based services. According to Gartner, total worldwide cloud spending will top $431 billion this year, and it continues to grow at rates between 8 and 9 percent annually. Suffice it to say that cloud computing is a juggernaut that shows no sign of slowing anytime soon.

Cloud computing wasn’t always this way. Just a decade ago, Ingram Micro created its cloud computing division – Ingram Cloud – with much promise of growth, but also with a fair amount of apprehension. When Ingram held its first Cloud Summit in 2009, it didn’t have the marquee brands or high attendance. Ingram knew cloud computing was the next big thing, but the distributor didn’t know how it would unfold or how fast the channel would adopt it.

With a decade of experience under her belt, Ingram Micro Cloud’s Renee Bergeron joins POD2112 to reflect on the early days of developing a specialized cloud distribution division, the technology, trends that have changed over the years, and the opportunities and challenges that lie ahead for vendors, solution providers, and end users.

Episode 71: SAP’s Karl Fahrbach on Leadership’s Role in Channel Transformation

To say that the technology market is evolving is a bit of an understatement. Advancing technology and service-delivery models are changing the way vendors develop, sell, and deliver their products. Traditional routes to market just won’t cut it going forward, which is why many vendors are looking to transform their channels with new models, partner relationships, and value propositions. Transitioning and transforming channels isn’t easy, as it often means navigating a minefield of corporate political, cultural, and strategic conflicts. Getting channels to transform requires top-down leadership, which is why SAP recently appointed Karl Fahrbach its first chief partner officer, responsible for the company’s global channel go-to-market and transformation strategy. From Fahrbach’s perspective, vendors need true senior global leadership to drive meaningful change throughout their organizations. Without senior leadership, change will come slowly – if at all, he says. Fahrbach joins POD2112 to provide a first-hand overview of his new role and mission, and to discuss the necessity of having someone in his position.

Episode 70: Microsoft’s Toby Richards on Digital Transformation and Evolving Channel Dynamics

Venture capitalist Marc Andreessen famously said software is eating the world. Perhaps, but it’s more like software is reshaping the world. Software, delivered via the cloud, is increasingly making the world more digitally defined. Each technology generation is giving us a greater ability to shape and reshape our business infrastructures with greater ease and speed. Digital transformation and evolving go-to-market models are also changing the nature of the channel, which is no longer just about reselling product. It’s about service delivery, completeness of solutions, and customer experience. Through this evolution, vendors’ go-to-market strategies will shift from traditional resellers to marketplaces for automated sales, independent software vendors for complementary applications that complete solutions, and professional service organizations for the expertise and support to create superior customer experiences. Toby Richards, general manager of partner GTM and programs at Microsoft’s One Commercial Partner organization, joins POD2112 to discuss how digital transformation is reshaping channel strategies, relationships, and go-to-market models. Despite the many challenges ahead of the channel, Richards and Microsoft see tremendous opportunities for partners that can meet the market’s evolving needs based on virtual systems and better outcomes.