March 02, 2022

Carolyn April: 2022 IT Channel Trends You Need to Know

43 minutes

CompTIA is a non-profit trade association that provides IT channel education, training, and certifications. They also provide valuable market research on the IT industry and channel, which is where today’s guest, Carolyn April, comes in. Carolyn is the Senior Director of Industry Analysis. Each year she works on the IT Industry Trends Report, based on surveys of both IT customers and partners. This year’s report reflects strong optimism in the IT channel with some important findings for channel chiefs.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

CompTIA’s 2022 IT Industry Trends report includes 10 key trends to watch. Here are 3 IT Channel Trends Carolyn shared that you should be considering for your partner strategy in 2022 and beyond:

Channel Cybersecurity still has a way to go. MSPs have been shifting their business to security, becoming MSSPs. Yet, cybersecurity is a discipline that is table stakes for all types of channel partners, not just MSPs. It’s not a nice to have, but a need to have, for many customers. And many partners are still lagging on their cybersecurity practices. You can’t go to a customer to talk about your primary line of business and not have a security discussion that goes along with it.

Consulting is today’s channel opportunity. Customer experience is now seen as the top competitive differentiator, creating a greater need for partner-delivered services. That means that partners, who may be feeling removed from the transaction, need to insert themselves more before the transaction as technology experts and after the transaction as consultants. And it means vendors need to rethink their partner programs, incentives, training and development programs.

Partner Marketing is more important than ever. The channel has been notorious about not being good at marketing, but now partner investment in marketing is increasing. Partners realize they can now longer brand themselves based on the vendor they represent. They must make a name for themselves around customer experience and the business outcomes they are driving. That means vendors need to think beyond just throwing MDF at partners and help partners learn how to be innovative and creative with their own marketing.

LINKS & RESOURCES

Follow Carolyn on LinkedIn

Get a copy of the CompTIA 2022 IT Industry Trends report

Save the date for CompTIA ChannelCon 2022

Listen to Jay McBain’s 10 Channel Predictions For 2022

Learn more about Allbound

The post Carolyn April: 2022 IT Channel Trends You Need to Know first appeared on Channel Journeys.

...more

View all episodes

By Channel Journeys Podcast

4.8

1212 ratings