The good times are almost here again
There was some potentially good news for the channel at the end of last month when Canalys published research suggesting the total addressable global IT market will grow 3.5% this year. While that sounds like a cause for only muted celebration, it’s still better than a decline.
What was perhaps more interesting, however, was the suggestion by Canalys that more than 70% of that addressable market, equivalent to $3.4 trillion, will be served by the channel. I must admit to having to look at that figure again. I may even have rubbed my eyes just to make sure I was seeing what I was seeing. $3.4 trillion!
No one is going to turn their nose up at that kind of money. But it did make me wonder what would be the optimal channel share of the addressable market? Should it be more, or less?
The easy answer to that question has to be “it all depends who you ask.” There may well still be some vendors who would like to see that share reduced. But probably nowhere near as many as there would have been in the past. Most of the high profile direct sales companies have long eschewed their old model in favour of a mixed sales approach that places a greater emphasis on indirect sales.
The channel, by contrast, is probably more than happy for its share of the addressable market to keep on growing. And why not? If the figure for your share of a market is already over 70%, it’s hard not to believe that the argument is essentially over and things aren’t likely to start swinging back in the opposite direction any time soon.
Is it being driven by customers or vendors? Or both? Or is it just the economically logical approach to take for many vendors who can see the value of being able to deploy a readymade network of indirect sales and support organisations to market their products?
All of the above, probably.
In this context, I was interested to see a news story this week on the IT Europa website announcing that Secureworks was going ‘partner-only’ in Europe. It seemed as if one vendor, at least, had come to a very clear conclusion over how much of its addressable market should be delivered by the channel.
The story underneath the headline, however, didn’t seem to be quite as definitive, even if the direction of travel was very clear.
“Secureworks has announced the expansion of its partner first strategy across Europe,” it stated. “Effective from today, all new Secureworks Taegis security services business across the region will be sold in collaboration with strategic solution providers and MSSPs.”
That would appear to set down a marker for where Secureworks is heading for the future.
Personally, I don’t see any reason why the figure should not be higher than 70%. If the channel partners are there and customers are happy to deal with them, why not?
Ironically, the potential inhibitor that I can see is in the number of channel partners and how many vendors they are able to take on board.
It may well be that the issue is more about the percentage of the addressable IT vendor market that channel partners are able to service.
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