ENTERPRISE TECHNOLOGY
ENTERPRISE TECHNOLOGY
unmanaged resources and out of control
costs, which can be counterproductive.
Here again, partners can step in and
add value by offering enterprises cloud
management solutions.” Fadi Kanafani
at NetApp adds: “Channel partners can
manage the technology in a better way
if they automate processes rather than
manually managing them. This will reduce
the time and resource allocation required
to ensure effective data management.”
Samih Moussly, ServiceNow.
Costs: Some of the challenges faced by
channel partners in the region include the
cost of infrastructure. “The initial costs of
setting up are sometimes high due to the
investment required in building the right
infrastructure to serve the market,” says
Fadi Kanafani at NetApp.
One of the big reasons
organisations choose
to move to the cloud
is to take advantage
of the elasticity and
scalability it offers.
helping enterprises with data profiling to
determine exactly what data needs to stay
on-premises and what data can potentially
be moved to the cloud. Cloud solution
providers are also now capable of offering
solutions for decrypting data before it
leaves a customer’s premises, giving the
organisation full control to decide, based
on the data classification assessment,
what is to remain in its datacentre and
what can be put in the cloud.”
Cloud management: Samih Moussly at
ServiceNow adds: “One of the big reasons
organisations choose to move to the
cloud is to take advantage of the elasticity
and scalability it offers. That being said,
provisioning cloud resources too quickly
can lead to virtual machine (VM) sprawl,
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Education: Another
challenge is keeping
up with changes in
the latest technology,
stiff competition from
other partners and
tight customer budgets.
“Partners need to
educate customers
that cloud solutions,
combined with business
mobility, will be the
biggest differentiator for their business,”
says Ossama Eldeeb, Senior Manager,
MENA Partner Organization, VMware.
Dr Hichem Maya, Head of Industries,
SAP MENA echoes this sentiment:
“The main challenge for the Middle
East is educating customers on how
cloud solutions can help to drive
innovation, optimise costs, simplify IT
infrastructure and free up IT staff to
bring products to market faster.”
Skill set: According to Vibhu Kapoor,
Director – Alliances & Channel
Ecosystem, India, Middle East & Africa at
Infor, “The biggest obstacle that the cloud
industry is facing is the availability of
skilled resources who can undertake the
deployment of applications on the cloud.
The cloud comes with its own nuances
and intricacies that only a trained and
experienced consultant can appreciate.
For example, the architecture of a cloud
solution is different from that of an
One of the
big reasons
organisations
choose to move
to the cloud is to
take advantage
of the elasticity
and scalability it
offers.
Vibhu Kapoor, Infor.
on-premises version.” Jeroen Schlosser
at Equinix concurs: “Channel partners
who will flourish in the changing market
are those that will embrace the cloud by
pivoting from an outdated resell model
to embrace a new role as active, strategic
advisers to their customers. This means
channel providers need to focus on
staffing their organisations with highly
experienced cloud experts, who are
uniquely qualified to offer the consultative
services end users will increasingly expect
ssue 07
NTELLIGENT TECH CHANNELS
Partners who
are specialised
in the latest
cloud business
solutions will
rise to the top
in a highly
competitive
channel market.
from the channel. Now more than ever,
it’s important for channel providers
to establish strong and successful
relationships with vendors.”
Training and development
Although channel partners are aware of
the various cloud solutions available to
them, training and development remains
vital because of the rapid pace at which
the industry and technology is changing.
Vibhu Kapoor at Infor, says: “Ongoing
training and education to improve
channel partners’ knowledge is more
important than ever.” A sentiment echoed
by Fadi Kanafani at NetApp, who adds:
“In our ever-evolving world, our channel
partners are sometimes faced with solving
new and complex customer IT challenges.
As a result, partners are reinventing
themselves and looking for effective ways
of addressing client requests.”
Reinvention seems to be key; for
example, Jeroen Schlosser at Equinix
says: “Channel partners are seeing their
businesses disrupted as cloud computing
takes much of the installation expertise
required out of setting up the solution. In
the same way that newspaper companies
used to make money with their classifieds
sections, channel partners need to reinvent
themselves to meet market needs.” In
addition, Ossama Eldeeb at VMware sees
partner/vendor alignment as important.
“There is an urgent need for partners to
align with the right vendors to upskill and
be trained on the latest cloud and software-
defined solutions.”
Becoming a solution specialist
is also important. According to Dr
Hichem Maya at SAP: “Partners who
are specialised in the latest cloud
business solutions will rise to the top
in a highly competitive channel market.
For example, demand by employers
for cloud skills have grown by 165 per
cent in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
and by 160 per cent in the UAE since
2014, according to the recent report,
Workforce 2020, by Oxford Economics.”
Dr Hichem Maya, SAP MENA.
Leveraging opportunities
Industry experts agree that, to leverage
cloud opportunities in the current
market, the channel must keep abreast of
changes in the technological landscape
and customer movement to the cloud,
whether it’s PaaS, IaaS or SaaS. Vibhu
Kapoor at Infor says: “They need to
find their domain and capabilities,
and build a cloud practice internally.
There are currently opportunities in the
market, so being close to the customer
is extremely important. Educating their
customer base on the benefits of moving
to the cloud is another way to create
opportunities. Lastly, the channel should
choose a world-class vendor that has
cloud solutions and partner with it.”
Jeroen Schlosser at Equinix adds:
“One of the most popular ways to leverage
the cloud, SaaS can serve as a delivery
model for an endless array of business
applications. Cloud-based disaster recovery
is another advantage of using the cloud
during those critical moments, which also
gives you the ability to store your business
continuity plans off-site, so you can access
them from anywhere in the event of an
emergency. File storage is another great
gateway into cloud computing, as most of
us have been exposed to a cloud-based file
storage environment already.”
Fadi Kanafani at NetApp agrees:
“Storage is undergoing its most exciting
transformation yet, driven by the
disruptive forces of flash and cloud. In
2017, we expect to see products and
solutions respond to the market needs
for simplicity, easier management,
better economic returns and a need
to integrate data management across
the hybrid cloud. In the Middle
East, cloud is driving significant IT
infrastructure spending in enterprises
and government departments. As the
private sector is embracing digital
transformation, governments are also
launching initiatives such as e-learning,
healthcare and smart technologies.” And
the concluding comment from Jeroen
Schlosser at Equinix, which sums up
cloud computing nicely: “One thing is
clear; the cloud isn’t a destination. It’s a
journey on which technology and market
conditions are constantly changing.” ¢
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