The channel “tree” has well and truly been shaken during the past 18 months. It started with Covid-19 and the lockdowns, with projects put on hold, shipments delayed, and the work environment undergoing massive change as people moved to working from their homes.

Of course, while some companies suffered – typically those focused entirely on project and corporate server work – others flourished as companies and/or their end users rushed to upgrade PCs, networks, printers and video/audio devices for these new environments. I know a number of companies that had record years in 2020 as a result.

This year we’ve experienced extreme components shortages which are hitting all manner of industries – such is the prevalence of chips in almost any modern device. This came about due largely to factories being shuttered due to Covid-19 outbreaks in various countries, and short-time working in open factories because of staff shortages due to exposure and/or illness.

But even what could be produced faced shipping delays due to the same factors – ports being wholly shuttered for periods and/or suffering from a lack of staff.

Again, there were those organisations that benefitted in some way – especially those that had built up larger-than-ideal inventories of components and finished product. They were able to reduce their inventories significantly during this time.

And then came July’s riots and looting, primarily in KZN and parts of Gauteng. Factories and warehouses were attacked, looted and, in many cases, razed to the ground, along with transport infrastructure too. The technology-related businesses were particularly hard hit by this resulting in still greater shortages of products.

Having said all this, we need to think about what the future will look like for the industry with continuing levels of working from home (WFH).

Mark Cuban, the billionaire entrepreneur who worked his way up from a sales person at a PC software retailer showed us that “Wherever there is change, and wherever there is uncertainty, there is opportunity!”

Hardware has generally reached a point where it needs far less-frequent refreshing, so sales of notebooks etc., will drop back again after the current upgrade “rush” has passed. Remember how they were 20% to 30% down before the pandemic?

Essentially this means a move to software (on subscription) and services, together with a level of consumables, although I suspect print volumes will drop too as printing from home is generally a good deal more expensive than on big corporate printers.

Whereas in office environments the IT team looked after the desktop environment and kept things going, this will be increasingly difficult and/or expensive for them to do when people are working remotely much, if not all, of the time.

Perhaps, then, the route for the channel will be that of an outsourced IT service provider for companies – managing their server and cloud environments centrally, while being on call (possibly with a network of sub-agents in remoter places) for end user “at desk” support.

This will, of course, require careful costing and planning for both the corporate and the reseller as travelling to different people’s homes will be more time-consuming and expensive than attending to the same number of people at a central location.

While some of the support can be on a “bring into a central depot” basis (for obvious hardware and software problems related to the primary device – eg. notebook), much will need to be done on-site, especially when it comes to network-related issues.

And, furthermore, the hours of service might need extending too as the WFH environment often means different hours of working.

The models and implementation aren’t yet entirely clear, but one thing is certain – they will be different, and the channel needs to work now on how this will change their ability to best serve their customer base and the products and services they offer.

As Abraham Lincoln said, “The best way to predict your future is to create it.”