When it comes to channel partner-vendor interactions, many channel partners find comfort in building a lasting relationship with a single vendor. Often, this is due to good and consistent support from the vendor, a good technology offering and all around brings incremental value to partner’s businesses year over year. But this ‘comfort’ can also limit the value channel partners provide to customers.
Whilst it is easier to work with one supplier for the purpose of ease of implementation and procurement, staff training and cost, there are untapped opportunities when it comes to having a multi-vendor approach and perhaps even collaborating with other partners to offer a best of breed solution for the end user.
A traditional technology distribution model supports a build-to-order and deployment philosophy where a single vendor’s hardware simply needed to be pulled from shelves and delivered via an efficient logistics operation and supply chain system to the purchaser.
This linear approach limits the requirement to understand which vendor products play nicely with another’s, but still supports many other value-add services you see across the continuum today.
Broadening horizons
In the road to building a comprehensive portfolio of solutions, working with multiple vendors can provide a significant advantage for channel partners. By partnering with vendors that specialise in different areas of the technology landscape, partners can provide their customers with a wider range of solutions that are tailored to their specific needs and goals. For example, one vendor may specialise in cybersecurity solutions, while another may specialise in cloud infrastructure or data analytics.
What we’ve seen over the past decade, and particularly over the past two years of extreme digital disruption, is technology becoming much more tailored to fit the complex business demands of end users. As a result, channel partners are leaning towards gaining the ability to deploy solutions from multiple vendors and partners to maximise their portfolio and gain the confidence to offer a tailored fit package of solutions for the end user.
When we talk to partners about growth, they know that solutions orchestration and developing their own intellectual property is the direction they need to take to go to market as leaders in their field.
According to a recent Canalys industry benchmark report commissioned by TD Synnex, partnering with others in the channel ecosystem is becoming more important, with nearly 80 per cent expecting to partner in this manner. However, this is easier said than done in a period of rapid technological development when skilled employees are more difficult to come by.
Balancing investments in training and managing multiple vendor relationships can be a challenge for partners. How can they ensure they’re able to offer customers the comprehensive solutions they need to innovate and successfully grow themselves? The answer is in leveraging the channel ecosystem to create partnerships that fill in the gaps, working with other partners or systems orchestrators.
Tailored solutions
Channel partners can collaborate with each other to provide integrated, end-to-end solutions that are tailored to their customers’ specific needs and goals, while also leveraging the technical expertise and skills of each partner in the ecosystem.
In doing so, channel partners can build long-lasting relationships with their customers and differentiate themselves in a crowded market, while also driving innovation and growth in their own businesses.
As the technology landscape continues to evolve, the role of multi-vendor approaches is likely to become even more important in the years ahead. Advances in cloud technology with a focus on artificial intelligence and machine learning are creating new opportunities for partners to work with multiple vendors to deliver innovative solutions to their customers.
In working with other partners or systems orchestrators, partners can provide more than just the right technology; they can ensure that they play a bigger role in solving their customer’s challenges.
There is no sense in partners losing out on business because they were looking at the opportunity purely through the skills and expertise that they have in house. In an increasingly complex technology landscape, going it alone is unsustainable.
Being successful in a multi-vendor world will require partners to invest in core competencies across multiple vendors, whilst also realising that they cannot boil the ocean and that strategic partnerships can help close deals they might otherwise have given up.
This article appeared in our May 2023 print issue. You can read the magazine in full here.