Author: Cam Wayland
As the year draws to a close we are often asked about our tips or ideas for the coming year. This year our number one tip to improve channel performance is easy to do, costs very little, but will deliver huge gains in productivity, relationship alignment as well as revenue. Simply conduct regular structured business reviews. The following article applies no matter if you are a vendor, distributor or a reseller.

Most channel professionals review the performance of their partners (distributors or resellers) on a semi regular basis. However, this is often a reactive response after a revenue target has been missed. This paper looks at the review process as being an integral part of a best practice partner management program, and a tool that will benefit everyone.   Read More

Author: Cam Wayland
Lately we have seen many VARs looking to move a portion of their clients to either a Managed Service or some type of XaaS Cloud based service. However it is not just the technology the reseller has to consider as part of this strategy. Any move to transition business to this type of recurring revenue model will have a significant effect on the organisation at a business level - ie. working capital, cash flow, remuneration structures for sales reps and of course financial reporting and/or how the business is valued.

Unfortunately our experience in working with both vendors and partners alike, is that many do not fully understand the financial ramifications, and therefore the benefits and pitfalls, of a recurring revenue model. One such example is the “Rule of 78”.   Read More

Author: Cam Wayland
Recently we were engaged by vendor client to help them work through how they would achieve the growth targets they were given, and of course willingly and gratefully accepted. Therefore I thought it was worth taking a broader channel wide view of what drives growth, not only in resellers but across the entire channel ecosystem of vendor, distributor and resellers.

An ICT reseller cannot achieve strong growth in isolation, but needs the support of an aligned channel ecosystem, as well as good business skills, dedication, determination, focus etc as well as a great product portfolio from leading vendors.

Reviewing our recent consulting assignments I offer the following observations for our top tips that will drive channel growth. The first regardless if you are a vendor, distributor or reseller the number one tip is alignment.   Read More

The ARN State of the IT Channel report (published in March 2012 ) collected data from 315 respondents about their observations and insights of the last 12 months, and what we could expect in 2012.

In this article, we sit down with ARN's Matthew Sainsbury and Patrick Budamar to look at the data and try to explain what this report is really saying about the industry.

State of the IT channel: Reading the numbers  Read More

Author: Cam Wayland
Recently we were asked to review the MDF program for a vendor who was concerned that they were not getting the best return for their marketing dollars.

Part of the brief was to look at ideas that were “outside the box”, but could still be implemented rapidly across multiple regions. In addition, any solution had to be able to be measured sufficiently at senior executive level, as well as at a field or line manager level, because they felt that part of the problem was the current program had an internal disconnect of objectives.

In order to understand how we went about solving this issue, it is worth firstly taking a moment to review some of the general MDF programs issues that we have observed over the years (and this vendor was no exception to many of these).   Read More