The complexity of IT environments has increased dramatically in recent years, despite efforts to maintain simplicity and ease of management.
Everything from unified communications to software-defined networking and converged and hyperconverged infrastructure has led to overlaps in function and operation that have meant IT environments have become ever more challenging to implement and manage. This has led to the emergence of the IT reseller as a solution provider to whom the customer looks for guidance on tools and solutions to meet business needs.
However, recent consolidation trends have meant that the number of businesses able to provide such services to its customers is falling. A CONTEXT ChannelWatch survey from last year found that across 20 EMEA countries, there has been a 3% year-on-year reduction of active resellers during early to mid 2017 alone. The survey report warns that if the trend continues, the reseller landscape could alter significantly in the next few years.
In this environment, those resellers that can provide full, end to end solutions, while maintain an open portfolio to provide options at every level, are emerging as the ones that find success.
In the 2017 Tech Excellence Awards, Agile Networks won the Reseller of the Year award for demonstrating the ability to meet customer needs with a broad portfolio, supported by investment in accreditation, R&D, and significant spares holding of more than $1 million (€810,000).
Agile Networks won 2017 Reseller of the Year. Award presented by Patrick Healy, CMS Distribution
Founded during the difficult years of recession, the company held true to a philosophy it calls “focal engineering”, where it resisted the trends seen in the market towards reducing networking portfolio choice and become increasingly reliant on manufacturers to backfill internal skills shortages. According to Agile, this led to a corporate marketplace being dominated by a small number of ‘end-to-end’ resellers with large fixed cost bases, inflexible operational models, and a ‘one size fits all’ approach to networking.
Agile has said it believes ‘one size fits none,’ and has built a business model around a multivendor portfolio and its unique operational approach to ensure that it can provide a tailored solution that is no less comprehensive but remains adaptive to individual needs.
If your organisation has a story to tell about how it has adapted to market change, or innovated through new business models and approaches, the 2018 Tech Excellence Awards are open for entries, with a closing date of 13 April.
Now in their eighteenth year, Ireland’s national Tech Excellence Awards celebrate success in the country’s most vibrant sector, at an annual prize giving and gala dinner which has become the social event in the tech business calendar.
The awards will take place on 24 May 2018, with some of the most dynamic companies in the sector at a night of celebration at the four-star Citywest Hotel.
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