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 Aziz Benmalek, vice president of Worldwide Hosting & Cloud Services at Microsoft.
We truly have "crossed the chasm" and are in the "early majority" stage of the cloud-adoption curve. Cloud is disrupting traditional IT faster than we think, which means increased opportunity for cloud service providers.
One of the biggest opportunities for partners moving into 2017 is helping customers navigate the superior functionality of cloud offerings, and managing their production workloads running in the public cloud. In fact, 451 Research indicates that cloud managed services are projected to be a $43 billion market by calendar year 2018, growing 60 percent faster than infrastructure-only services. More
Posted on December 26, 20160 comments
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 Ken Thoreson, RCP columnist and president of Acumen Management Group.
Thinking about 2017 versus the past two years, I envision that most Microsoft partners will begin propelling their organizations to new levels of success.
In most cases, the business models have already been worked on during the past two years, and if those partners have focused on the right actions, 2017 should be highly profitable.
During the past two years, we have worked with many organizations on their partner cloud acceleration strategies and business-velocity tactics. In the new year, the words I would use to describe partner marching orders would be: "Brilliant Execution: Finding Leverage, Fine-Tuning Business Models and Enhancing Management/Sales Training." More
Posted by Ken Thoreson on December 23, 20160 comments
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 Howard M. Cohen, who writes this publication's "The Changing Channel" column.
My "marching order" for all Microsoft partners is stop and ask yourselves the hard questions. Realize that the relationship between you and Microsoft is changing rapidly, and you need to face the brutal truth of those changes and adapt.
Where will you and your company go? More
Posted by Howard M. Cohen on December 22, 20160 comments
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 Eduardo Kassner, CTO of Microsoft's Worldwide Partner Group.
Organizations across all industries are recognizing the value digital transformation can have in propelling future growth and it's driving the explosive demand for cloud-enabled solutions. With Microsoft Azure premium services revenue, we have seen triple-digit growth for the last eight consecutive quarters. In 2017, it will be more important than ever to make investments in cloud training for your most valuable resource, your employees.
We want to make it as easy as possible for every partner to get the skills they need to address the growing market opportunity. To help close the skills gap in the high-tech industry, at our Worldwide Partner Conference this past July, we announced the Microsoft Professional Program (MPP), the first of its kind to offer employer-endorsed, university-caliber curriculum for professionals at any stage of their career. More
Posted on December 21, 20160 comments
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 Gavriella Schuster, corporate vice president of Microsoft's Worldwide Partner Group.
Cloud technology is no longer a nascent trend -- it's the new normal. Last spring, IDC research found that 80 percent of businesses are deploying or fully embracing the cloud, and that number will only continue to grow.
The opportunity in 2017 and beyond for partners is huge. In fact, IDC also found that public cloud services spending is forecast to hit $195 billion by 2020, with greater cloud spending hitting $500 billion in that same timeframe. More
Posted on December 20, 20160 comments
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 Jeff Hilton, founder of Alliance for Channel Success.
There is a big drive for organizations to achieve greater digital maturity.
When organizations use technology-led initiatives and digitally managed processes to drive performance, they gain strategic assets and distinct competitive and effectiveness advantages. They gain new ways of finding, engaging and working with clients and co-workers. More
Posted on December 19, 20160 comments
Editor's Note: A big challenge for longtime Microsoft partners is managing the transition from providing on-premises services and billing to getting profitable in the newer cloud models. In this guest post, Tim Wallis, founder and CEO of enterprise Office 365 and SharePoint consultancy Content and Code, describes how the U.K.-based firm made the switch from a project-based business to a managed service provider.
In my business, it pays to embrace change, and in this day and age I think that has never been more true. As we continue to face ever more uncertainty -- both economically and politically -- the need for a business to be flexible is not only an advantage, but is becoming a fundamental necessity.
Today, I want to talk about my experience of this "new normal" of business flexibility, and show how to take advantage of the opportunities it presents. I'll show how my company moved from an on-premises business to a cloud business, from project-based services to a managed services model. I'll talk about overcoming the resistance we encountered, how we customized our client approach and restructured our workforce to turn us into one of the leading Microsoft Partners in the United Kingdom. More
Posted on September 14, 20160 comments
Editor's Note: Throughout the month of January, we'll be running installments of Marching Orders, our annual collection of advice and predictions from channel luminaries about what to do and what to expect in the year ahead. For this entry, Mike Harvath, CEO of Revenue Rocket Consulting Group and a longtime RCP columnist, makes a counterintuitive recommendation about contract lengths in this recurring revenue age.
Beware the curse of the long-term contract.
We're going to offer some advice for the coming year that on its surface seems counterintuitive, but when looked at practically, makes a great deal of sense. It's the fallacy of the long-term (i.e., three-year) contract. Say what? More
Posted by Mike Harvath on January 28, 20160 comments
Editor's Note: Throughout the month of January, we'll be running installments of Marching Orders, our annual collection of advice and predictions from channel luminaries about what to do and what to expect in the year ahead. For this entry, longtime Microsoft partner Matt Scherocman, president of Interlink Cloud Advisors, provides some peer-to-peer tips.
In my opinion, Microsoft is changing faster than ever before. Customers are changing their business plans and processes quickly and the industry is rapidly evolving.
As partners, we are always in the middle between the vendors and the clients -- which can be painful! We all know that vendors, including Microsoft, are going direct to clients more than ever before. My marching order to my own team is to integrate tighter than ever with field teams at Microsoft. We know that there is painful change happening. Staying close allows us to better predict and react to changes. More
Posted on January 27, 20160 comments
Editor's Note: Throughout the month of January, we'll be running installments of Marching Orders, our annual collection of advice and predictions from channel luminaries about what to do and what to expect in the year ahead. This entry comes from someone at the center of the changes and challenges in the hosting world -- Aziz Benmalek, vice president, Worldwide Hosting and Cloud Services, Microsoft Corp.
We're in an exciting period of change and opportunity for cloud and hosting service providers. These partners represent one of the fastest-growing channels for IT delivery with new providers being created and growing every year.
A study released by 451 Research during last year's Microsoft Cloud and Hosting Summit revealed that nearly 70 percent of the opportunity for cloud service providers now sits above infrastructure. The increasing demand in areas such as managed services, application hosting and security services represents an opportunity for partners to drive net-new business and address a broader set of customer needs. Customers are turning to partners not only for services like disaster recovery and application development, but for management of their cloud migrations and operations, as well. More
Posted on January 25, 20160 comments
Editor's Note: Throughout the month of January, we'll be running installments of Marching Orders, our annual collection of advice and predictions from channel luminaries about what to do and what to expect in the year ahead. For this entry, we asked Josh Waldo, vice president of partner strategy and programs at Nintex, to discuss the implications of a Nintex study released last month about trends among IT buyers.
A lot has changed from the time when the modern day IT services channel emerged to what it looks like today. Outsourcing, reselling and project-based services were the key value propositions for decades and the buyers were invariably IT decision makers. IT and the business units became very interdependent and, at the same time, highly contentious with each other.
Throughout all of this, an incredibly large and thriving IT channel has grown and profited with a primary relationship targeted squarely at IT. More
Posted on January 22, 20160 comments
Editor's Note: Throughout the month of January, we'll be running installments of Marching Orders, our annual collection of advice and predictions from channel luminaries about what to do and what to expect in the year ahead. For this entry, we invited Cindy Bates, Microsoft's vice president of U.S. Small and Medium-Sized Business & Distribution (SMB&D), to point to some opportunities for Microsoft partners.
We start 2016 with the mantra, "The power is in your hands." There are more opportunities available to partners and customers than ever before, and new innovations are coming at a rapid pace, whether they're new cross-platform plays like Office 365 on iPads or with the new Office 365 SKU, E5.
E5 brings new value through the most comprehensive set of productivity, collaboration, analytics, security and compliance capabilities in Office 365 to date. (Read more about it here or watch this video.) More
Posted on January 21, 20160 comments