Marching Orders 2017: Prepare for a Correction
    
  What  should you do to make the most of technology business opportunities in 2017? For this "Marching Orders" series, we  put that question to a number of channel luminaries, including top Microsoft  channel executives, consultants, Microsoft partners and other regular RCP contributors. This entry comes from Reed  Warren, vice president of  Revenue Rocket Consulting Group.
Harry  Truman was fond of saying how much he yearned for a one-handed economist. He  grew weary of economists offering one prognostication, then a minute later  saying, "On the other hand," and proffering yet a completely  different scenario.
We're  going to offer a one-handed prognostication for 2017/2018 -- the market could  very well see a pullback in demand, thereby setting off a technology  correction. 
It seems the timing is about right. We are not looking at a  correction the likes of 2000/2001, or of 2007/2008. It appears to us that the  market going forward will be characterized more by a sustained period of  incrementalism, rather than some new significant, unforeseen innovation that  reshapes the market.
The  IT services firms that will prevail over the next 12 to 24 months will be the top-quartile  performers possessed of an arsenal of cash, low debt and a fortified balance  sheet. 
In addition to a healthy balance sheet, these top-performing companies  will be those that have successfully transitioned to a process orientation, and  with significant IP initiatives. They have focused their business on the  intersection of a technology and an industry. Having such will put the company  in a better position to win over new customers relative to those less endowed,  and to also be in a more advantageous position to make attractive acquisitions.
History  has proven time and time again that successful companies look at recessions or  pullbacks as the best time to invest in their business, such that they come out  the back end in a better position than they were at the outset.
For  2017, think profit.
 
	Posted  on December 29, 2016