Q & A
EDITOR ’ S
The years 2020 and 2021 whilst challenging on a personal note has also been a highly positive one for the technology industry and the channel ecosystem as a whole . Faster adoption of cloud , digital technologies , security and collaboration technologies has driven the need for a whole host of technologies . 2022 seems to be moving in a similar pattern . Communication and collaboration technologies will continue to be in high demand , especially with hybrid working on the rise , which will create the need for providing a quality of service and experience
NEHUL GORADIA , VP-CHANNELS , ICEWARP MIDDLE EAST
equivalent to what you would get within your offices . At IceWarp , our whole belief of providing a focused unified communication and collaboration platform , is driven with this ethos of providing a quality of service no matter where you are .
The channel should look at taking advantage of moving away from a traditional box or resell model to an As-a-service model . The ability to allow customers to scale up or down across offerings whether hardware driven or even service driven will allow them to create a recurring revenue model and retain customers for a longer period , which in turn will create opportunities for upselling and cross-selling .
Looking at numerous factors , the disruption caused by the pandemic isn ’ t complete as yet . Remote working , hybrid working , task / project-based hiring and much more seems to be on the rise . This leads to a whole aspect of communication , collaboration and security challenges wherein certain roles are delivered by
We ask our partners to be the ‘ true trusted advisors ’ to their customers . That is the best way to help overcome these challenges . resources no longer part of traditional organisations . This also opens a complete plethora of opportunities to find resources and customers in areas which are away from their traditional markets . This requires CIOs to provide a technology landscape which allows their organisations to be able to capitalise on this new and rising models .
From an IceWarp perspective , we ask our partners to be the ‘ true trusted advisors ’ to their customers . That is the best way to help overcome these challenges . One of the biggest asks is for partners , to not look at selling products , but understanding what their customers really need . What are their pain points ? And then propose a solution which could be based on a product or a service or a combination of both . Conversations should be around business roadmap , security , regulatory compliance , skills availability , technology and much more . While there are offerings in the market that have so much potention prioritising intelligence , artificial or otherwise , is as good as the core data sets and automation prevalent within operations today . Whilst there have been various new AI and Machine Learning driven offerings in the last couple of years , we ’ re still a distance away for a complete AI / Machine Learning driven operation . What channel should be prioritising is on the precursor , internally and externally , by automating their processes , cleaning their and their customer ’ s data sets , to allow these to be used for an AI-based operation down the road . In the long run , AI / Machine Learning will be prevalent across multiple functions , processes and industries , but there is readiness to be achieved across the ecosystem to enable the same .
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