It’s always gratifying to hear good news, and even better to share it (although it’s probably more of a thrill to share bad news) so I thought it worthwhile to draw your attention to the recent European Technology Survey published by IT Europa, a Pan-European business information provider and analyst.
The report, based on a poll of 19,401 directors of 8,000 channel organisations drawn from 35 European countries, found that more than 70% of distributors and resellers were more confident about their prospects for this year than they had been for 2006. Obviously, I’m taking that as good news, although I suppose we need to be careful just in case most of the people polled by IT Europa had had a really terrible 2006. But if we’re safe in assuming that, at the very least, profits and revenues had been OK in 2006, then it looks as if the European channel is generally optimistic about this year.
According to IT Europa, sales through indirect channels are expected to show significant growth and business confidence is high. The survey also reported that more than two-thirds of respondents expected increases in revenues, orders and profits. The most bullish sectors were independent software vendors and systems integrators, where more than 50% expected substantial increases in profits. Eastern Europe was the region where more respondents predicted significant growth in sales.
Those readers willing to fork out €2,870 for the full report are welcome to do so. For the others, I’ll summarise some of the report’s highlights without giving away too much.
Alan Norman, IT Europa’s managing director, believes the survey shows “a maturing industry in pretty good health. It also underlines the strength of the software and services sectors, and the importance of brands, with most of the leading vendors achieving strong rankings.”
I think we can all agree Alan’s comments are eminently sensible as it would be remarkable if brands were not important and if leading vendors did not achieve strong rankings, because this would suggest those vendors might be “leading” even though the channel had given them a bad rating. If that were the case, it’s not a message I’d like to get out to vendors as they might start asking themselves if they needed the channel to help them be “leading vendors” at all.
The IT Europa report also looks at the channel’s perception of the effectiveness of major vendors’ marketing and channel programmes. I would be amazed if many readers of this column did not have strong views from their own experiences of how effective vendor marketing and channel programmes might or might not be. This leads me to believe that most prospective customers willing to shell out €2,870 for the report are the same people creating the marketing and channel programmes in the first place. The same people, let’s face it, who can afford to pay for it. Vendors, in other words.
While €2,870 is not a lot of money to many vendors, I’d still hate to be the one who shells out the cash and excitedly opens the report to see how the company has scored – only to find its name propping up the league table for marketing programme effectiveness. Discovering you have scored very poorly in a survey on the effectiveness of your marketing or channel programme has got to hurt a lot. Especially when you’ve paid nearly €3,000 for the privilege.
Full report: www.iteuropa.com
Subscribers 0
Fans 0
Followers 0
Followers