The pandemic has changed the reseller market. In fact, there has been a significant shift across every industry, sector and business over the past two years.
The way people do business, think about business, and approach business has changed, writes Henk Olivier, MD of Ozone Information Technology Distribution.
For the channel reseller with sales and products to move, and connections to make, this change has been significant. Many of the products that once followed the distributor and channel models are now leveraging direct sales channels, cutting out the reseller completely. And the pressure is on the reseller to find new ways of keeping customer attention, and market share.
Today, it’s become increasingly important for resellers to focus on getting subscription-based products to resell and support. This is a powerful new route to market, and one that has legs across multiple sectors and applications. Otherwise, there’s no need for the reseller or distributor anymore.
Many of the large vendors have developed models where end users can purchase products or services from them directly, but they’ve retained reseller models that allow for end users to continue relationships with trusted reseller partners. And this is where the market can really shine. Taking up the slack and embedding best practice support, service and advisory to retain the clients and leverage market demand.
Resellers need to come up with services and value-added benefits that embed their value within the customer’s mind.
They need to find ways of answering very clear customer questions and providing insights and strategic guidance that’s focused on helping customers go further and do more.
Resellers may also need to drop products that are no longer relevant, or that don’t translate to the reseller model anymore, and look to taking on different products while offering management service solutions to clients.
This gives them the ability to start an annuity business model that will expect a different cash flow and approach. For the smaller business, this is a complex move as cashflow will fundamentally change over a long transition period.
But this change is inevitable so the best time to start, is now.