The IT channel has weathered many storms over the last couple of years, and many reseller partners welcomed 2022 as the year when life could return to some semblance of normal.
Instead, they have been faced with a host of new and more complex challenges.
Customers made many fundamental changes to their business models over the last two-and-a-half years, and resellers must ensure they skill themselves up to provide the services and solutions that are needed today.
“Some of the challenges associated with customer pain points and their expectations from their trusted advisers include areas around security and beyond,” explains Natasha Bezuidenhout, business executive at First Distribution.
“A simplified example is providing a customer with a mailbox, facilitating the data ingestion from the on-premise platform, and configuring the email product.
“The partner now has to think about how the mailbox is secured, and what additional value they are providing to ensure a failsafe environment by adding end-point security. Here, skills and certification from the technical resource become critical.
“But the cloud offers much more than just a mailbox and partners are no longer selling just products and solutions – they need to play an active part in the customer’s environment by providing end-to-end solutions. This requires a much higher level of pre-sales capability.”
Some specific challenges in the Microsoft market include programmatic changes implemented by Microsoft, which have caused a degree of turbulence and uncertainty in the channel.
These were exacerbated by the introduction of the New Commerce Experience (NCE), which was implemented almost instantaneously, leaving resellers in the dark about the real business implications, and giving them little time to adjust.
First Distribution has been proactive in supporting its partners from an enablement perspective, unpacking the implications the new model brings from a credit risk perspective and also implementing our marketplace integration model: First for Cloud,” Bezuidenhout says.
“We have also implemented our Project Amber project, where we educate business stakeholders – from the Global MPN holder to the financial manager – on how to manage the new model more effectively.”
More recently, Microsoft announced its new Microsoft Cloud Partner Program (MCPP), which replaces the MPN program. “Project Amber helps to guide the partner ecosystem in aligning the new competency requirements to benefit from a business focus that increases profitability,” Bezuidenhout explains.
“The new MCCP designations require partners to specialise according to key value characteristics unpinning the value the partner will play at the end customer. These six new Solutions Partner designations focus on the partner’s strengths.
“Although the competency requirements are divided into three core measurements, we do see upcoming challenges in the partner’s ability in achieving against the new set of criteria that stretches across Performance, Skilling and Customer Success.”
With challenges, opportunity
Although the environment can be complex and tricky to navigate, the wealth of new solutions add immense opportunities for partners.
“The various elements to be taken into consideration in a customer’s environment put them on first step to a hybrid model,” Bezuidenhout says. “So, more than ever, the focus that Microsoft places on security and the vast security features and functionality across the three clouds plays a significant role.
“When we look at the opportunities from a partner perspective, security should be front and centre in these discussions,” she adds.
“The technical requirements needed to assess the customer’s environment, implement the correct technology to solve the pain points based on the findings from the assessments, and correctly deploy the vast majority of features and functionality, requires certified resources.”
First Distribution understands the impact these changes have on partners. “That’s why we support our partner ecosystem in navigating through these changes, staying closely aligned with key vendor stakeholders to ensure that the answers not outlined clearly in the literature are unpacked and communicated in layman’s terms,” says Bezuidenhout.
“Through our Project Amber activity, we take partners through the end-to-end journey of their Partner Center environment to ensure that the partner’s key business stakeholders understand the importance of their membership, the benefits, their profitability, and opportunities to grow to leverage this tool effectively.
“To align with the new Solutions Partner designations, we are also investing back into our Partner ecosystem to help partners obtain the certification required as part of the metrics in achieving the new competency requirements. First Distribution is sponsoring more than 100 exams aligned with these new designations and holding the hands of our partners every step of the way.”
The future is in the cloud
During and post-Covid the adoption of cloud technologies started pivoting, and today oganisations are adopting different methods of hybrid working, while also reviewing their digital transformation approaches and transitioning their workloads to the cloud.
“The opportunity for partners is no longer in selling a license, or dropping hardware and walking away,” says Bezuidenhout. “It is in developing a cloud strategy and long-term partnership with their customers. And the customer expects highly-skilled expertise from their technology partner.”
Across Africa, there is a shortage of the technical skills and human resources required to help customers on their journeys, she adds
“It does leave the chicken-egg scenario: do I first invest in resources and skill them; or do I start my cloud journey by scaling customers to the cloud?
“As a Solutions and Services Integrator, First Distribution enables this journey to begin by providing partners with billable services so they can get going and ramp up on resources and skills as they progress with customers adopting cloud technologies.”
The opportunity for telcos
Cloud works both ways, and there are opportunities for telecommunications companies to offer over-the-top cloud services that broaden their market base and relevance with customers.
“There is an exciting opportunity for telcos to transition to techos,” says Bezuidenhout. “Already, many telecommunication businesses have already identified the opportunity in driving technology solutions to their customers.”
This move enables the telco to unlock new revenue streams through new services and new business models.
“Telcos have an extended reach across Africa, and the opportunity to offer new technologies and services brings additional value-add and revenue streams to help businesses of all sizes to adopt technology under one roof.
“In addition, the opportunity to position technology solutions that brings new value propositions and enhances the digital transformation experience for consumer and business customers is key.”
It is a daunting task and not simple for a telco to transition its existing business models to accommodate and include cloud-based solutions on an annuity model, Bezuidenhout adds.
“But most of the telcos that we have supported have successfully transitioned and, through their executive sponsorship, we keep supporting them with driving rapid scale. The process is not short-lived and can take between 12 to 18 months. However, the rewards are substantial.”
To help telcos make the transition, First Distribution, with the support of Microsoft Africa Transformation Office (ATO), has successfully built out a Telco Centre of Excellence (COE) to kickstart the delivery of technology solutions to telco customers.
“First Distributions supports both vendors and telcos to scale and pivot the positioning and activation and consumption of productivity and cloud technologies to consumers as well as small, medium and corporate business customers,” Bezuidenhout says.