Changing Channels

Episode 52: Xerox’s Toni Clayton Hine on Brand Power

Brands are more than just the names of companies and products. Brands are the embodiment of corporate missions and value propositions. While brands don’t make products, products can make define brands and buyer propensity to use a company’s products and services. Through brand building, companies position themselves for purchasing consideration, customer loyalty and market influence.

Some brands are so successful that they become genericized, becoming known for their company and/or products as well as the products of competitors. Branding isn’t an overnight exercise. It takes careful crafting to ensure the message aligns with the products and mission, and then it takes a persistent delivery to the target market to ensure prospective buyers understand and internalize the brand message and value.

Toni Clayton Hine, chief marketing officer at Xerox, knows the benefits and challenges of brand building. Hine oversees a brand synonymous with photocopying and the printed page; a brand so well known that it’s hard to think of any other copier vendor without thinking Xerox. But she’s also challenged with evolving the brand so people recognizes Xerox’s existing and future capabilities in document management, business process optimization, and time-savings solutions.

Hine joins Pod2112 to discuss brand building and brand management, sharing what every company needs to know about brand power.

Episode 51: Baptie & Co.’s Rod Baptie on the Growing Influence of Non-IT Specialized Partners

While professional services players such as accountants, lawyers, and marketing firms have operated on the IT channel’s periphery, they’re coming out of the shadows, and in greater numbers. Thanks to cloud computing and the Internet of Things (IoT), they’re joined by a cohort of non-IT manufacturers of consumer and commercial durable goods. Collectively, these are the specialized channel partners, and they’re part of a growing segment of resellers, service providers, and influencers that are opening new routes to market for IT vendors. Rod Baptie, president of Baptie & Co., has long talked about the potential power of specialized channel partners. Even with this influx of non-traditional partners, he believes the IT channel is still in the early days of leveraging specialized channels.

Episode 50: IBM’s Chris Rimer on Evolving Cloud Ecosystems

Cloud computing isn’t just a hardware replacement. Cloud infrastructure has little use without applications, and the volume of cloud-enabled software is increasing rapidly. The need for applications that run on cloud-based infrastructure or enhance cloud-based software services is changing the way vendors think about their go-to-market strategies and partnerships. Cloud providers are building software-rich marketplaces that enable customers to access the resources they need to get the most out of their services. And vendors are fostering broad cloud ecosystems of application developers and independent software vendors to bring more applications into the cloud. Chris Rimer, vice president of IBM’s North America Cloud Ecosystems for Business Partners & Channels, joins Pod2112 to talk about the evolving nature of cloud partnerships, alliances, and go-to-market strategies.

Episode 49: Citrix’s Carlos Blanco on Making CAMs Cloud Business Development Managers

A funny thing happened on the way to the cloud: The way we conduct business and sales changed. No longer is the technology market merely a series of transactions and box shipments. Fixation on quote retirement doesn’t do much to help partners develop books of business that result in stable and predictable recurring revenue streams. Partners need support in business transformation and maturation, and they need it from their channel account managers. Getting CAMs to act more like business development managers takes more than changing job descriptions. Vendors need to provide CAMs with direction, training, and resources. They also have to change their compensation plans. Carlos Blanco, senior director of Worldwide Cloud Service Providers at Citrix, joins Pod2112 to talk about the need for transforming the role of channel account managers in the cloud computing era.

Episode 48: 2112’s Alex Hart on Channel Fundamentals

The technology market is in a constant state of evolution. Disruptive and emerging technologies – cloud computing, mobility, artificial intelligence, Internet of Things, etc. – and new delivery models – services and hybrid infrastructure – are disrupting the traditional channel. Vendors are aligning their channel programs to these new models. While channel strategy is evolving to meet current and future market dynamics, some things will not change. Alex Hart, a veteran executive of such vendors as Symantec, VMware, and Verizon Enterprise, joins Pod2112 to talk about the partnering fundamentals that remain unchanged amid disruptive technology trends. He also talks about his new role as senior vice president of strategic services at The 2112 Group.

Episode 47: Cyxtera’s Tina Gravel on Incenting Cloud Partners

Cloud computing was supposed to change everything about go-to-market strategies, and that included disrupting channel partners – and possibly making them obsolete. But it turns out that channel partners are as important as ever in helping vendors reach cloud customers. Surprisingly, many of the same incentives used in traditional channel programs are equally applicable in the cloud era. As Tina Gravel, senior vice president of channels and alliances at co-location vendor Cyxtera says, vendors are paying partners for access to customers, and traditional incentives like deal registration work well in this context. What works well, too, is co-selling, as many partners need help selling complex cloud services. All this adds up to vendors – both traditional and cloud – leaning on their standard incentive tools well into the cloud era.

Episode 46: SAP Ariba’s Natasha Loeffler-Little on Expediting Partner Time to Revenue

Every vendor wants partners to produce more revenue. The challenge is getting partners onboarded and enabled to sell and support vendors’ products and services. The channel is an important source of revenue for vendors, but not always quick. For many vendors, the onboarding and enablement process can take as long as six months, which delays partners from getting in the field to prospect and sell. Fast partner time to revenue is important because it gives vendor management confidence in the value of the channel program. For channel managers, though, partner time to revenue is a strong indicator of the potential of channel partners. Natasha Loeffler-Little, the head of North America channels at SAP Ariba, joins Pod2112 to talk about the importance and strategies for using partner time to revenue as a leading channel indicator.

Episode 45: Attivo’s Carolyn Crandall on Deceiving Hackers

Security professionals have long dismissed security by obscurity or attempts to hide information from hackers. In such schemes, hackers will sniff through the decoys and find the real assets. A new class of security technology – distributed deception – may change that thinking. Distributed deception creates authentic looking IT environments – complete with data and applications – to trick hackers. Through this approach, security teams can detect and stop attacks faster than through conventional means. Carolyn Crandall, the chief deception officer and chief marketing officer of Attivo, joins Pod2112 to talk about how distributed detection can make enterprise security more effective.

Episode 44: Brainlink’s Raj Goel on Privacy in the Age of Social Media and Big Data

Since the revelation that Cambridge Analytica harvested data from millions of Facebook accounts, people from Main Street to Capitol Hill are asking what privacy means in the age of social media. Many politicians are calling for new regulations to restrict what information companies can collect from their online users as well as what they can do with that data. Raj Goel, CTO and founder of security MSP Brainlink, and author of “UNPLUGGED Luddite's Guide To CyberSecurity.: What To Teach Your Kids & Grandparents Before They Access The Internet,” joins Pod2112 about the need for regulations to govern how companies gather and use personal data without crippling the ability to gather the raw material for beneficial technologies, such as Big Data.

Episode 43: Changing Channels: The Rise of Automated Marketplaces in B2B Sales

Consumerization is no longer just a retail thing, as businesses increasingly source IT products through automated channels and marketplaces like Amazon and Alibaba. In a new research paper titled "Strategies for Engaging Automated Digital Sales Channels," The 2112 Group is taking a hard look at how this shift toward automated digital sales will roil traditional two-tier channels and force new relationships between vendors and partners. In this special episode of POD2112, Research VP Chris Gonsalves talks with the paper's author, 2112 CEO and Chief Analyst Larry Walsh, about ADS's potential impact on the existing channel and vendor go-to-market models, and how vendors should plan for this disruptive but potentially lucrative trend.