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Changing Channels uncovers what it takes to get the next generation of technology to market. Join Larry Walsh, chief analyst and CEO of Channelnomics, for candid conversations with thought leaders, channel chiefs, and partner executives sharing actionable insights, best practices, and lessons learned in a channel that’s constantly changing. Each episode provides expert go-to-market guidance for enhanced performance in the channel.
Episodes
Oct 12, 2022
Oct 12, 2022
30 min
Todd Palmer, senior vice president of global partner sales at Tanium, joins Larry Walsh to talk about the mythical “right partners” that vendors always seek to sell their products and why it’s important to set the right expectations when developing go-to-market partnerships.
Vendors often say that they want to work with the right partners — resellers and solution providers with the ability and willingness to sell their products, support their customers, and, most of all, book consistent sales and beat revenue expectations.
“The right partners” are the white whales of the channel — a bit of a myth, if not misnamed. A partner’s appropriateness for a vendor’s go-to-market needs and program depends on alignment of the right product, vendor brand and product marketability, and sales economics, and on the partner’s alignment in capabilities, capacity, and willingness to invest resources.
That’s a pretty tall order, which is probably why the average vendor generates about 95% of its indirect revenue through less than 5% of its partners. And that’s also probably the reason why so many channel people say they want “the right” partners. In the survey for our 2022 Channel Chief Outlook, 83% of channel professionals said they’re challenged in getting partners to meet their sales goals and revenue expectations.
It’s an endless pursuit to identify, recruit, enable, and engage partners that will self-actualize in the market, hunt for net-new opportunities, and build books of business that accelerate revenue growth.
Channel veteran Todd Palmer, senior vice president of global partner sales at security vendor Tanium, joins Changing Channels to discuss ongoing efforts to find the right partners, how it’s often an unrealistic pursuit, and how vendors should approach the issue of finding qualified and capable go-to-market partners.
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Channelnomics: https://channelnomics.com/
LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/2NC6Vli
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Channelnomics
Changing Channels Is a Channelnomics Production
Follow @Channelnomics to stay current on the latest #research, #bestpractices, and #resources. At @Channelnomics — the voice of thought leadership — we define #channel trends, chart new #GTM strategies, and #partner with industry leaders to champion #diversity in the channel.
Episode Resources
Host Larry Walsh: https://bit.ly/3beZfOa
Guest Todd Palmer: https://www.linkedin.com/in/todd-palmer-310807/
More videos by Larry Walsh: https://tinyurl.com/mr25a4cy
Sep 27, 2022
Sep 27, 2022
29 min
Lou Serlenga, chief revenue officer at Nile, joins Larry Walsh to talk about the launch of a new Network-as-a-Service company that’s leveraging channel partnerships to take on the incumbents in the staid, commoditized networking segment.
New technology companies spring onto the IT landscape all the time, but few launch into a well-established and commoditized segment that’s dominated by a giant such as Cisco Systems. Yet that’s what the folks at Nile are doing.
Under the leadership of chairman John Chambers, former CEO of Cisco, and Pankaj Patel, former executive vice president and chief development officer at Cisco, Nile is looking to disrupt the networking segment with a pure as-a-service model that allows customers to pay only for the networking services they consume. It’s not a new idea, but the Nile approach is much grander in scope and ambition than what others — including the established networking companies — have tried.
Working entirely through channel partners, Nile launched with more than 50 resellers and integrators in its Nile Connect channel program, which is as unique as its product and business model. There are no tiers or certifications, just an ease of access that allows partners to build recurring revenue on Nile’s services.
The job of building and expanding Nile Connect belongs to Lou Serlenga, the company’s chief revenue officer and a Cisco veteran. Serlenga is looking to develop a broad and vibrant channel program to disrupt his former company’s long-held leadership position in the networking market by giving partners and customers an alternative to buying boxes. Serlenga joins Changing Channels to discuss the launch of Nile and its ambitious channel program.
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Channelnomics: https://channelnomics.com/
LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/2NC6Vli
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Channelnomics
Changing Channels Is a Channelnomics Production
Follow @Channelnomics to stay current on the latest #research, #bestpractices, and #resources. At @Channelnomics — the voice of thought leadership — we define #channel trends, chart new #GTM strategies, and #partner with industry leaders to champion #diversity in the channel.
Episode Resources
Host Larry Walsh: https://bit.ly/3beZfOa
Guest Lou Serlenga: https://www.linkedin.com/in/louserlenga/
Larry Walsh on interest rates impacting the channel: https://youtu.be/Ta5QDNTANlg
More videos by Larry Walsh: https://tinyurl.com/mr25a4cy
Jul 21, 2022
Jul 21, 2022
16 min
T.C. Doyle, vice president of strategic content at Channelnomics, joins Changing Channels host Larry Walsh to discuss the challenges all vendors face in transitioning from transactional to recurring revenue models.
Services sold through subscription or recurring contracts are fast becoming the dominant go-to-market model for all vendors. While cloud service providers are built on the recurring-revenue model, even hardware and component vendors are pivoting toward the predictable revenue model.
Recurring revenue is attractive, but it’s not easy to generate when a vendor has a legacy of transactional sales. Recurring revenue is — or should be — a replacement for transactional sales. In theory, transactional revenue should go down while recurring revenue increases, over time creating an “X” pattern on a graph.
The challenge is that many vendors try to maintain, if not grow, their transactional sales while building a book of business on recurring revenue. This creates conflict as partners and customers are caught between making choices that often stymie the transition process. This is what Channelnomics calls the X-Chasm.
Navigating the X-Chasm requires understanding the nature of the revenue transition process and how it influences partners and customers, making choices in channel strategy, and adjusting priorities for internal stakeholders responsible for managing legacy and future business units. In this episode of Changing Channels, industry veteran T.C. Doyle talks about his cover story in the premier issue of Channelnomics Quarterly that details the X-Chasm phenomenon and how channel chiefs can navigate the trap successfully.
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Channelnomics: https://channelnomics.com/
LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/2NC6Vli
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Channelnomics
Changing Channels Is a Channelnomics Production
Follow @Channelnomics to stay current on the latest #research, #bestpractices, and #resources. At @Channelnomics — the voice of thought leadership — we define #channel trends, chart new #GTM strategies, and #partner with industry leaders to champion #diversity in the channel.
Episode Resources
Host Larry Walsh: https://bit.ly/3beZfOa
Guest T.C. Doyle: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tcdoyle/
Credits
Production: Changing Channels is produced by Modern Podcasting. For virtual content capture and video-first podcasts, check out http://www.modpodstudio.com.
Host Larry Walsh: https://bit.ly/3beZfOa
Voice-Over: Denise Quan
Jun 22, 2022
Jun 22, 2022
22 min
Justin Crotty, senior vice president of channels at Netenrich, joins Channelnomics Changing Channels host Larry Walsh to discuss how data and device telemetry is transforming managed service delivery and value propositions.
Managed services in the channel are nothing new. Partners started delivering them more than 20 years ago, augmenting and replacing their legacy break/fix support with remote monitoring and management.
Increasingly, vendors — particularly legacy hardware and software vendors — are discovering the power and value of service and subscription models. Vendors want the same predictable recurring revenue that partners have generated for years. Wall Street and private equity investors are rewarding vendors that make the transition from transactional sales to service-based subscriptions.
Services ranging from endpoint management to cloud administration are generating petabytes of data. Through the telemetry of the data broadcasted by devices and applications in the field, vendors and partners have a rich source of analytics to diagnose performance and security issues.
While managed services have always promised customers quick responses to performance issues and system failures, the reality is that services are reactionary. Something has to happen to trigger an alert so a vendor or partner can take action. That’s changing, though, as data analytics become more available. Vendors are beginning to leverage telemetry to identify issues as early as possible so that they and their partners can take anticipatory action and prevent system failures for end users.
A vendor on the forefront of this trend is Netenrich, which is offering managed service providers a vendor-neutral capability to tap into the telemetry stream to identify and anticipate customer performance issues before they can cause more serious problems. Justin Crotty, senior vice president of channels at Netenrich, joins Changing Channels to discuss this growing trend of enabling partners to be more proactive.
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Channelnomics: https://channelnomics.com/
LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/2NC6Vli
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Channelnomics
Changing Channels Is a Channelnomics Production
Follow @Channelnomics to stay current on the latest #research, #bestpractices, and #resources. At @Channelnomics — the voice of thought leadership — we define #channel trends, chart new #GTM strategies, and #partner with industry leaders to champion #diversity in the channel.
Episode Resources
Host Larry Walsh: https://bit.ly/3beZfOa
Guest Justin Crotty: https://www.linkedin.com/in/justincrotty/
Credits
Production: Changing Channels is produced by Modern Podcasting. For virtual content capture and video-first podcasts, check out http://www.modpodstudio.com.
Host Larry Walsh: https://bit.ly/3beZfOa
Voice-Over: Denise Quan
Jun 7, 2022
Jun 7, 2022
12 min
Larry Walsh, chief analyst at Channelnomics, discusses the performance challenges that channel chiefs face, explaining that they’re rooted in a fundamental misunderstanding of partner business models and ill-conceived presumptions about partner capabilities.
Being a channel chief isn’t easy. Channel leaders face numerous challenges, including getting partners to perform in a way that contributes to company goals and revenue-generation expectations. This underlying challenge is amplified by the struggles that come from transitioning channels to new service and subscription models.
In the 2022 Channel Chief Outlook report, Channelnomics reveals that 85% of channel chiefs say they’re challenged in getting partners to adopt new products, technologies, and services, while 83% say they’re grappling with getting partners to meet or exceed their sales goals. And 71% struggle to get partners to adopt new go-to-market models — mostly based on services and subscriptions.
What’s the source of these challenges? Walsh posits two possible answers: myopic thinking and a fundamental misunderstanding of partner business models.
Over the past two decades, resellers and integrators evolved their business models beyond transactional product sales and break/fix services. Partners make most of their money on managed and professional services. But vendors continue to think that they have to lead partners into the future of services and that partners are behind in their service capabilities.
In this episode of Changing Channels, Larry Walsh, chief analyst at Channelnomics and host of the podcast, details what vendors get wrong about their partners’ business models and capabilities and what they need to do to overcome the challenge of generating superior channel performance that contributes to their corporate goals.
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Channelnomics: https://channelnomics.com/
LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/2NC6Vli
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Channelnomics
Changing Channels Is a Channelnomics Production
Follow @Channelnomics to stay current on the latest #research, #bestpractices, and #resources. At @Channelnomics — the voice of thought leadership — we define #channel trends, chart new #GTM strategies, and #partner with industry leaders to champion #diversity in the channel.
Episode Resources
Host Larry Walsh: https://bit.ly/3beZfOa
2022 Channel Chief Outlook report: https://channelnomics.com/product/channel-chief-outlook-the-2022-report/
Channelnomics Quarterly: https://channelnomics.com/cq/
May 3, 2022
May 3, 2022
28 min
Ingram Micro Cloud’s John Dusett joins Changing Channels host Larry Walsh to discuss new cloud research — conducted by Channelnomics and supported by Ingram Micro Cloud, Microsoft, and Google Workspace — and how the customer experience is crucial when it comes to service renewals and expansions.
The cloud computing market continues to grow at double-digit rates. Over the next decade, businesses will continue to migrate systems and mission-critical workloads into cloud environments. They’ll adopt cloud-based applications to replace legacy client-side licenses, and they’ll subscribe to managed services to support their cloud resources.
To say that it’s a good time for reselling and supporting cloud computing services is an understatement. According to our recent report — “Buying the Cloud: The As-a-Service Experience From the Customer Perspective” — 47% of SMB IT buyers, the prime target for the channel, plan to buy more cloud computing products in the next 12 to 18 months. End users are adopting infrastructure services, productivity software, business applications, and backup services. Moreover, they’re expanding their cloud utilization to include customer support applications and Internet of Things infrastructure.
Cloud computing provides solution providers with recurring revenue. Customers pay for services on monthly or annual schedules, providing resellers with predictable income. The recurring-revenue model works well as long as the customer keeps paying, renewing contracts, and expanding service utilization. As solution providers have learned through managed services, customers are more apt to expand their cloud capacity when they have positive experiences and recognize the value of their spending.
Customer experience is becoming a significant factor in solution providers’ cloud value proposition. While vendors are the source of cloud services, solution providers are the managers of cloud resources and customer experiences. If solution providers can facilitate a positive, seamless experience, customers are more apt to renew and expand their cloud contracts. According to the research conducted by Channelnomics and Ingram Micro Cloud, 38% of cloud buyers base their decision to renew contracts on their experience with a solution provider.
In this episode of Changing Channels, John Dusett, Ingram Micro Cloud’s executive director of cloud services for the United States, joins us to discuss the increasing importance of customer experience in cloud computing engagements and what solution providers need to do to impress and satisfy their clients.
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Channelnomics: https://channelnomics.com
LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/2NC6Vli
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Channelnomics
Changing Channels Is a Channelnomics Production
Follow @Channelnomics to stay current on the latest #research, #bestpractices, and #resources. At @Channelnomics — the voice of thought leadership — we define #channel trends, chart new #GTM strategies, and #partner with industry leaders to champion #diversity in the channel.
Episode Resources
Host Larry Walsh: https://bit.ly/3beZfOa
Guest John Dusett: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johndusett/
Apr 27, 2022
Apr 27, 2022
31 min
TeamViewer’s Patty Nagle and Rob Thiele join Changing Channel’s Larry Walsh to discuss how they’re revamping their channel program to accelerate the company’s evolution into more use cases and market opportunities beyond their remote-access foundation.
Many products start out as free, consumer-oriented offerings to capture market share for what’s often a singular purpose or value proposition. Over time, they evolve into more business-ready, enterprise-centric solutions. The trick is building the sales capacity and coverage to make the leap from legacy to future. The channel is often that evolutionary catalyst.
One company that’s using the channel to make this leap forward is TeamViewer. Best known for products that enable remote access and control for endpoints, TeamViewer is expanding beyond its core into collaboration, workflow management, and augmented reality. While it maintains the freemium offerings that got it started, TeamViewer is increasingly looking to channel partners as a means of identifying new opportunities and servicing an expanding total addressable market.
In this episode of Changing Channels, Patty Nagle, TeamViewer’s North America president, and Robert Thiele, vice president of strategic alliances and partners for the Americas, join host Larry Walsh to discuss how they’ve reshaped their channel program to account for different types of partners, customers, and use cases to facilitate growth beyond the traditional core.
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Channelnomics: https://channelnomics.com/
LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/2NC6Vli
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Channelnomics
Changing Channels Is a Channelnomics Production
Follow @Channelnomics to stay current on the latest #research, #bestpractices, and #resources. At @Channelnomics — the voice of thought leadership — we define #channel trends, chart new #GTM strategies, and #partner with industry leaders to champion #diversity in the channel.
Episode Resources
Host Larry Walsh: https://bit.ly/3beZfOa
Guest Patty Nagle: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pattynagle/
Guest Robert Thiele: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robthiele/
Apr 12, 2022
Apr 12, 2022
40 min
Larry Walsh, chief analyst at Channelnomics, provides an overview of how the Russian war on Ukraine is affecting global and regional economies, and how the conflict will impact the technology industry and channels.
The Russian war on Ukraine isn’t a regional conflict. While the fighting is happening across the plains and marshlands of the Ukrainian heartland, the war is having a cascading effect of human and economic disruption around the world.
As Walsh explains, the war will cause significant disruptions in energy, food, and raw-material supplies. Western resolve to oppose the war through sanctions comes at a cost; experts say the economic penalties against Russia will reduce global economic growth by 1% to 2%. Ultimately, the consequences of the conflict and the Western response will likely push many countries into recession and instability.
The Western world was in a fog of disbelief, thinking that such a large conflict was beyond the realm of possibility in the post-Cold War era. In our guidance, Channelnomics is preparing for the unthinkable, even if implausible. Technology companies need to develop contingency plans for potential disruptions still to come.
In this special edition of Changing Channels, Channelnomics provides an overview of the war in Ukraine from the unique perspective of how it could continue to impact the technology industry and channel. Chief analyst and Changing Channels host Larry Walsh provides insights on the current extent of the conflict, how it’s disrupting different industries, and how those disruptions will ripple through the general economy.
For a promo code granting free access to one of our latest analyst notes, “Getting Comfortable Asking Uncomfortable Questions Regarding War,” be sure to listen to the entire podcast.
Follow us, Like us, and Subscribe!
Channelnomics: https://channelnomics.com/
LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/2NC6Vli
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Channelnomics
Changing Channels Is a Channelnomics Production
Follow @Channelnomics to stay current on the latest #research, #bestpractices, and #resources. At @Channelnomics – the voice of thought leadership – we define #channel trends, chart new #GTM strategies, and #partner with industry leaders to champion #diversity in the channel.
Episode Resources
Host Larry Walsh: https://bit.ly/3beZfOa
Apr 5, 2022
Apr 5, 2022
33 min
Larry Walsh talks to Hitachi Vantara Senior Vice President of Strategic Partners and Alliances Kim King on automating quoting for partners to ensure fast, easy access to accurate pricing with minimal human interaction.
Buyer expectations have evolved. No longer are companies willing to wait for weeks for quotes on their IT projects. They want the same “Amazon Experience” in their business purchasing that they get in their consumer lives. In other words, they want quotes in days, if not hours.
Quoting has been a longtime challenge for both vendors and distributors. Partners receive different discounts and incentives based on their status, sales performance and history, and competencies. Adding to the complexity is the impact of regional pricing differences, the varying needs of customers for different types of products, and the cost of distribution and fulfillment.
Configure, price, and quote (CPQ) solutions go a long way toward automating many steps in the process. Through such systems, partners (in theory) gain access to product pricing and quoting based on customer specifications and fulfillment needs. CPQ works well, but to a point. These systems often lack the ability to take into account the nuances of incentives and other financial measures that influence partner buying. As a result, gaps remain that keep the quoting process running long.
Storage vendor Hitachi Vantara decided to tackle this problem directly. Rather than adopting a CPQ system, the company formed a “tiger team” to develop a homegrown system based on Salesforce’s CRM. The team set out with the goal of creating a platform capable of processing partner quote requests within hours – even for large enterprise deals. Moreover, the system would include all partner incentives, including deal registration and promotional discounts, in the quotes.
The development took two years of work that included platform customization and the collection of volumes of pricing, discounting, promotional, and partner data. The effort, thus far, is paying off. The Hitachi Vantara partner quoting system is delivering enterprise-level quotes to partners, often in just hours. The tool, which gives partners a competitive advantage by turning around accurate prices with blazing speed, also gives partners more control over pricing, as they’re able to add their own markups with greater ease and consistency.
The Hitachi Vantara quoting system isn’t perfect and remains a work in progress, but the company is demonstrating how vendors can create better quoting systems that improve partner experience and performance. In this edition of Channelnomics’ Changing Channels, Kim King, senior vice president of strategic partners and alliances at Hitachi Vantara, joins host Larry Walsh to discuss how the company developed such a complex quoting system and extracted the benefits they sought.
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Channelnomics: https://channelnomics.com/
LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/2NC6Vli
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Channelnomics
Changing Channels Is a Channelnomics Production
Follow @Channelnomics to stay current on the latest #research, #bestpractices, and #resources. At @Channelnomics – the voice of thought leadership – we define #channel trends, chart new #GTM strategies, and #partner with industry leaders to champion #diversity in the channel.
Episode Resources
Host Larry Walsh: https://bit.ly/3beZfOa
Guest Kim King: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kimberly-king-746463/
Mar 29, 2022
Mar 29, 2022
22 min
Larry Walsh talks with Acronis CEO Patrick Pulvermueller about the impact the war in Ukraine is having on the technology market and channel, efforts made to help refugees, and how the Russian invasion is changing strategic and contingency planning.
The war in Ukraine, now raging for more than a month, woke governments and companies around the world out of their complacency. The dystopian-like order of the Cold War returned with a vengeance, causing many technology industry leaders to rethink their operations and outlook in ways they couldn’t conceive just weeks ago.
To date, thousands of lives have been lost. Entire cities have been leveled. More than 3.7 million Ukrainians are refugees in other European countries. And as much as 15% of the population has been displaced by the fighting and destruction.
The Western response has been multifaceted. Beyond the financial and military aid flowing into Ukraine, NATO and other Western countries have imposed sanctions on Russia that aim to cripple its economy. Many Western companies – most notably, technology companies – have suspended operations in Russia and taken active roles in aiding the Ukrainian resistance.
One of these companies is Acronis, a cybersecurity and backup specialist based in Switzerland and Singapore, with substantial connections to Russia and Ukraine through its diverse globalized staff. Acronis stopped doing business in Russia in 2017, and the company severed any remaining ties immediately following the invasion in solidarity with Western sanctions and in support of Ukraine’s resistance.
Acronis has taken additional steps as well. The company is actively working to provide displaced Ukrainians with employment; has pledged €500,000 through its charitable arm, Acronis Cyber Foundation; and is helping its employees in Eastern European countries that are providing aid and support to Ukrainian refugees. Acronis, like many of its peers, is dealing with issues that were unthinkable just a month ago.
Beyond the humanitarian efforts, Acronis and companies like it are shifting their strategic thinking. They’re not only thinking about their usual annual operating plans; they’re also considering the short- and long-term ramifications of a sustained war in Ukraine and the widening of the conflict to more countries. They’re coping with the continuing inflation and inventory issues, while adding sanctions and supply-chain disruptions to the list. They’re rethinking everything.
In this Channelnomics Changing Channels episode, Acronis CEO Patrick Pulvermueller joins host Larry Walsh to discuss the far-reaching repercussions of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and how it will impact technology companies around the world.
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Channelnomics: https://channelnomics.com
LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/2NC6Vli
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Channelnomics
Changing Channels Is a Channelnomics Production
Follow @Channelnomics to stay current on the latest #research, #bestpractices, and #resources. At @Channelnomics – the voice of thought leadership – we define #channel trends, chart new #GTM strategies, and #partner with industry leaders to champion #diversity in the channel.
Episode Resources
Host Larry Walsh: https://bit.ly/3beZfOa
Guest Patrick Pulvermueller: https://www.linkedin.com/in/patrickpulvermueller