The Channel Futures Podcast No. 17: The Best Time to Be in the Channel
Question: When was the best time to be in the channel?
The height of PC reselling? The days of Novell LAN installing? Or Cisco’s massive internet run up?
Maybe the best answer is, “today.”
Channel Futures has written two articles on the channel’s best days featuring various points of view. Here, we continue.
First up in this podcast is Forrester analyst Jay McBain. McBain is a longtime channel veteran of IBM and other companies. Today, he serves as principal analyst of business-to-business markets. McBain will join our edit team in Las Vegas at the upcoming Channel Partners Conference and Expo, April 17-20.
McBain thinks a great deal of what today’s information and telecommunications technology (ICT) channel does will go away in five or so years. But don’t worry, he adds, there will be plenty of high-value work for channel companies to do.
“This is the best time to be in the channel, depending on who you are. The channel itself is going to grow by at least five to 10 times. We have potentially millions of new technology companies that are being formed or being transformed. We also have a transformation with millennials that is happening now. Seventy-five percent of the channel will be millennials in six years. But they are not going to do traditional things,” McBain says.
Instead, they will offer greater subject matter expertise, tackle higher value technology problems and create new and unique customer experiences. Oh, and they will do a lot more software development and integration than they do now.
Afterward, we hear from Channel Futures Think Tank member and VMware channel vice president Shawn Toldo. He’s interviewed by our friend Theresa Caragol, founder and CEO at Achieve Unite. In this segment, Toldo talks digital transformation. More to the point, he discusses what channel companies themselves must do to transform their businesses so they can position themselves to help customers do the same.
Finally, we turn to Adam Petrovsky, the Government and Education Practice Leader at Logicalis US. Adam is a 20-year veteran of technology and education. Herein he talks about technology in the classroom and the federal government’s e-rate program.
Here’s hoping you enjoy this episode of The Channel Futures Podcast. For more, subscribe to us on iTunes or check us out on SoundCloud.