pod2112 Podcast

Technology is making the world move faster through analytics and automation. Businesses and individuals leverage the power of cloud computing and collaboration tools to interact without meeting face to face. In recent months, the value of these resources came to the fore as the COVID-19 pandemic forced businesses to shut down, send their staffs home, and initiate crash courses in socially separated working organizations. Even before the social unrest roiled the United States, business guru Tom Peters was thinking about the need for “Extreme Humanization,” in which businesses and people actively try to get closer through empathy and understanding. Peters argues that now, more than ever, we need humanization in our business world, communities, and politics. Peters, the author of several best-selling books, including “In Search of Excellence,” joins POD2112 to talk about the need for Extreme Humanization.

If we learned anything during the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s that cloud computing is the resilient resource it was always billed. Businesses leaned heavily on cloud-based resources and services to maintain operations as their staff shifted to work from home postures. At the same time, businesses – particularly SMBs – leaned on managed service providers to help them adopt, setup, and support their cloud services. The underlying challenge of cloud computing is setting up various services and understanding the total cost of ownership. A company helping MSPs simplify their path to the cloud is Nerdio. The company’s chief revenue officer, Joseph Landes, joins Pod2112 to discuss getting more MSPs into cloud services.

Over the past several years, vendors and solution providers have come under pressure to change their sales strategies and processes to meet evolving customer expectations. The COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent economic downturn are forcing a crash transformation as sales teams find themselves disconnected from partners and customers absent the usual communication venues such as events and face-to-face meetings. The COVID-19 crisis is compelling vendors and solution providers to rethink sales in the short and long term. The pandemic will change the way businesses and consumers buy, their expectations for sales and post-sales support, and how they measure value in the supplier-customer relationship. Tiffani Bova, global customer growth and innovation evangelist at Salesforce, former channel chief and Gartner channel analyst, and best-selling author of the book Growth IQ, joins POD2112 to talk about the changing nature of sales and growth during and after COVID-19.

No business is immune to the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite having long-term and recurring contracts, managed service providers (MSPs) are feeling the pinch of the downturn as customers curtail or shut down operations. Many MSPs are reporting customers canceling contracts, downgrading services, or simply not paying. Fred Voccola, CEO of managed services tools provider Kaseya, says MSPs are resilient to economic downturns, if not resistant to recessions. However, he caveats his point of view that the world is experiencing depression-like economic conditions that will adversely affect MSPs as much as their customers. It’s when the world improves to more “recession-like” conditions that MSPs will recover and thrive faster than most businesses. Voccola shares more of what he sees in the managed services segment and his long-term outlook for MSPs in this episode of Pod2112.

COVID-19 displaced tens of millions of office workers around the world. Overnight, companies went from cubicles teeming with activity to distributed workforces operating from makeshift desks, dining room tables, and couches. The displacement took many companies by surprise, forcing them to hastily equip their work-from-home employees or allow staff to use personal devices. The situation created a security nightmare by exposing businesses and corporate data to increased risk. Managed service providers (MSPs) are working around the clock to help their customers secure devices and data during social distancing. SolarWinds, a provider of IT automation and managed service software, is among the vendors supporting MSPs with resources to aid customers in this crisis. SolarWinds’ Tim Brown, vice president of security architecture, joins POD2112 to discuss the security implications of work-from-home and how MSPs are coping with this surge in demand for support.

Customer experience is the metric that an increasing number of technology companies are using to define success. Customers are less interested in ROI and technical features, and more interested in the sum of their experiences with technology and the outcome of their technology investments. SAP has been reorienting its go-to-market philosophy and strategy around becoming “customer centric” – putting the end user at the center of its endeavors, including its channel initiatives. In this time of massive disruption and economic uncertainty, customer-centricity is even more important in ensuring that vendors and partners don’t lose touch with their clients. Karl Fahrbach, chief partner officer at SAP, joins POD2112 to discuss the customer-centric model, how it applies to channels, and why it’s important even as the world deals with the COVID-19 pandemic.

The COVID-19 pandemic made managed service providers front-line responders to the crisis. As businesses scrambled to shift their workforces from office to remote, MSPs raced to get clients set up and running quickly with stable endpoints, platforms, and support. While MSPs are built to deliver services remotely, not all are equipped to meet the volume and variety of IT needs of their clients in the time of an extreme crisis. IT By Design – a master MSP that specializes in supporting solution providers with technical, infrastructure, and human resources – is seeing an increase in requests for help amid coronavirus. The pandemic’s mitigation measures are revealing the strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities for managed services. IT By Design CEO Sunny Kaila joins Pod2112 to discuss how MSPs are coping with COVID-19’s fallout.

SAP's Meaghan Sullivan joins POD2112 to share how the coronavirus outbreak could reshape marketing strategies in the long run. 

As technology continues to evolve and the market adopts service-based models, many vendors question the value distribution is contributing, and will contribute, to the go-to-market equation.

Traditionally, distribution is the layer that provides logistics, contract manufacturing, customization services, financing, and technical support on behalf of vendors to their partners. Some people believe that cloud computing and other service-based models diminish the need for distribution, as there’s little product to ship and support.

But distribution is evolving. While distributors continue to offer the traditional “pick, pack, and ship” services, they’re also providing value-add services in marketing, market intelligence, business development, hosting, service management, and more.

In addition, distributors’ financing activities are proving more valuable than ever as vendors and partners look to recognize service contracts before their terms mature. And distributors continue to look for ways to reinvent themselves, adding value to the vendor, partner, and end-user segments of the technology market.

The chief advocate for the distribution segment and its value proposition is the Global Technology Distribution Council (GTDC).

Now under the leadership of channel veteran and icon Frank Vitagliano, GTDC is reinvigorating its mission of distribution advocacy with new programs and initiatives to help vendors understand what distribution is doing for them today and how distributors will continue to evolve over the next decade.

Vitagliano, who was a channel chief at IBM, Juniper Networks, and Dell, as well as the CEO of a systems integrator, has a unique perspective on distribution. He joins POD2112 to discuss the evolving value of distribution and how distributors will remain relevant in the service era.

Internet of Things (IoT) is a multi-trillion-dollar opportunity. Connecting legacy systems to autonomous sensors and controllers are opening new vistas for creating smart enterprises, manufacturing, cities and homes.

Vendors – old and new – are creating IoT components and systems to bring the smart world vision into reality. IoT architectures are popping up all over the channel. The expectations are high that IoT will result in greater user experiences and operational efficiencies. Moreover, IoT sellers and buyers have grand visions for immediate and ongoing returns on their investments.

On the supply side of the IoT equation is the manufacturing process. IoT devices – sensors and controllers – must often operate in cramped, remote, and exposed locations. IoT devices require durability, as they’ll operate in the wild for as long as a decade (or longer). And they require security during the manufacturing process to their lifetime operation.
These are significant challenges the permeate the conception, design, manufacturing, architecture, deployment, and operational phases of the IoT lifecycle.

CoreKinect, an IoT design and manufacturing startup, is solving these IoT manufacturing challenges with a unique process for quickly translating IoT concepts into prototypes, and prototypes into finished products. And when it comes to manufacturing at scale, CoreKinect is building the products it brings to reality in the United States ensuring end-to-end security and quality at surprisingly competitive costs.

CoreKinect CEO and co-founder Assar Badri and president and chief strategist John Horn join Pod2112’s Larry Walsh to discuss the smarter way to design and build IoT devices and systems.