Harvey at Commtech agrees that “the freedom of mobility and telecommuting by tech savvy users with a diverse range of preferred mobile devices who have high expectations when it comes to the quality of their user experience is driving the evolution to the cloud. The end use attraction far outweighs the resistance of traditional IT to control and dominate how IT is made ready for end user consumption”.
Further up the chain, the finance director will read how cheap it is to get a desktop from Amazon or storage from the cloud and when the IT person “comes in looking for three servers or a SAN, the finance director will be asking why they can’t we do it themselves.”
While he might differ with Bland over his interpretation over whether what they’re seeing is a new style of IT or not, Butler agrees with him and Halpin that there is a shift in terms of how it is being approached. “We have to develop relationships to understand what the infrastructure is and how it works. Usually, somebody in finance is driving the discussion and they really don’t care where the service is delivered from. They tend not to differentiate between the data, application and infrastructure. It’s down to the trusted adviser to steer them through the right path.”
He observes that “more of the conversations are with the business and what the business wants. They’re still being funnelled through IT and IT management, but there is not so much of a requirement to be dealing with the network guy or the storage guy”.
This is forcing something of a skill change within Triangle: “We need people to understand a bit more about business processes and have more business analysis skills because we’re engaging more into the business.”
Conversational skills
Halpin says channel partners need to know their customers’ businesses and where IT plays a role in that business. That’s what is most important, he argues. “A conversation about the latest and greatest doesn’t have the same resonance as one about some work you’ve done around SEPA with other customers in their area. You need to know your products, know your customers and their business. You need to be able to talk as adequately to the finance director as you have been to the IT director”.
In other words, they need to be able to see beyond the traditional IT delivery model for themselves and their customers. “If users can’t get what they need from inside the organisation they’ll get it from outside. This opens up a plethora of decisions to make and the reseller as trusted advisor should help with addressing those decisions,” says Harvey at Commtech. “The role of IT strategist remains with the business, but the function of IT delivery will migrate out of the business and become more and more of what businesses expect from their suppliers.”
He predicts that channel partners will bring a mix of products, professional and consulting services to the table, along with ISP offerings as host or reseller and work with customers to design the optimum blend of on-premise or cloud services. “Key to offering their customers the best solution is to keep fully informed and up to date on emerging technologies,” he adds. “Of course, underpinning all of this is certainty on where emerging technologies and offerings are on the ‘hype curve’, separating reality from the vendor marketing line.”
We need to adapt in terms of how we manage the data and what kind of services we offer to manage the data” – Ian Butler, Trilogy
That’s not that far removed from what trusted advisers have always done. For instance, O’Brien says Triangle is increasingly acting as a “go-between” for cloud-based solutions and the customer. “We’ve partnered with providers in the cloud space and have a proposition around a number of services,” he says. “We provide local support and management. The customer is not having to contact the actual vendor but is working through a local partner that understands their environment.”
In addition to on-premise, customers looking at hybrid IT or full migration solutions or possibly some form of software as a solution into their environment. Triangle has a service desk that provides first and second level support, billing services, management and an interaction point for the customer. “That’s where our value add is,” O’Brien remarks. “We’re helping customers architect those solutions for their purposes.”
And it’s leading to an ongoing relationship where Triangle is involved in providing infrastructure for customers to run their business on a daily basis. “It’s helping to cement the relationship,” he adds.
Rowsome at Unity Technology Solutions agrees that channel partners need to be trusted advisers and “domain experts in their chosen field with solid experience in ‘people, process and technology’ change management. Collaboration with other partners who are domain experts in complementary fields is highly desirable and something that Unity does on a regular basis”.
Peter Smyth, head of managed services at Version 1, acknowledges “the significance of working at a strategic level with our customers to deliver business transformational solutions”. But he stresses that there is a mutual dependency between customers looking to the likes for Version 1 for expert advice and the company’s “essential dependency on the vendors, distributors and resellers we work with to ensure we can deliver the best value to our customers”.
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