GHASSAN ABOU RJEILY , REGIONAL CHANNEL SALES MANAGER EMERGING EMEA , RIVERBED
Q & A
EDITOR ’ S
HYPERSCALERS HAVE BUILT MARKETPLACES ON THEIR PLATFORMS TO PROVIDE SERVICES FOR ENTERPRISE CUSTOMERS . HOW CAN CHANNEL PARTNERS LEVERAGE THIS TREND AND BUYING PATTERN FOLLOWED BY END USERS
With the appetite for cloud adoption having scaled exponentially in recent years , hyperscalers such as Microsoft , AWS and Google have grown by leaps and bounds . Today , their marketplaces have become the preferred procurement model for many customers . Channel partners that discount the significance of this trend will find themselves at a disadvantage and lose business to more advanced partners .
Instead of being intimidated by the shift , partners that are pioneering the very nature and role of the channel are beginning to build their own service offerings on these
Partners should take advantage of ecosystems vendors have built . The shift to cloud solution selling enable partners to develop value-add services around solutions and ecosystems . Executives from Riverbed , HPE , Liferay share their perspectives .
GHASSAN ABOU RJEILY , REGIONAL CHANNEL SALES MANAGER EMERGING EMEA , RIVERBED
cloud marketplaces . They are combining cloud solutions from multiple vendors and packaging their value-add services around these to create compelling offerings that can be easily consumed by end customers .
Of course , for those channel players that are yet to embrace this shift – a key consideration pertains to which marketplace to build such a listing on . Here , my advice would be to consider where your customers are . After all , if your biggest customers already have commitment with a particular hyperscaler , it makes it simpler for all parties to transact business on the same platform .
While adapting to this model , partners should also aim to take advantage of the ecosystems that vendors have built . To deliver on the comprehensive solutions that enterprises now require , vendors have begun to collaborate more closely , developing deep , native integrations between best-of-breed cloud solutions , and creating compelling solution ecosystems .
This presents a significant opportunity for the channel . The shift to cloud solution selling and leveraging ecosystems enable partners to hit the ground running , as they can shift focus from managing the complexities of integration to instead developing value-add services around these solutions and ecosystems .
Moreover , partners who have invested to develop their skill sets around a particular vendor ’ s solutions will be presented with
opportunities to up-sell and cross-sell other solutions within the ecosystem which can greatly increase the deal-size , and the value they deliver to customers .
If your biggest customers already have commitment with a particular hyperscaler , it makes it simpler for all parties to transact business on the same platform .
INTELLIGENT TECH CHANNELS 51