But there are other partners “who go further and have invested in the new expertise and specialists required, the data scientists, and this will help to set them apart from the competition and deliver the real added business value”, he adds.
Murray argues there is a requirement for vendors to help partners develop different skills sets, to bring in data scientists and agile developers to take legacy systems and rework new apps that deliver “incredible insight at incredible speed”. By speed, he doesn’t just mean increasing the rapidity of business insight but the speed and agility to adapt and change apps to deliver fresher insights.
The Irish market also requires partners “to buddy up with other specialist organisations (some beyond our shores) that have sector expertise or particular technology expertise, as this will drastically improve the time to value for our clients and ultimately that is how we will win, together”.
“…[the] response to analytics results now is often automated, taking some operations out of the decision making process equation entirely” – Noel Crawford, IBM
Crawford agrees that although Irish clients want local expertise and access to smart solutions that can help them do more with less, vendors like IBM can help channel partners with access to global networks and ecosystems. The Innovation Centre, for example, provides easy access to benefits and support in areas like marketing, selling, training, technical information and collaboration. This isn’t a particularly new approach for a vendor to take with regard to any technology or solution but it shows that whatever the technology, the dynamic of the relationship between vendor and channel partner tends to remain the same.
“We help our partners to not only sell more, but to deepen their skills, and extend their reach across industries into the high-growth areas such as business analytics and Big Data, as well as cloud computing, expert integrated systems, and mobile and social business,” Crawford claims. The opportunity to collaborate with IBM through the Innovation Centre “can mean big business”, he adds, because it allows them to connect with global members.
Global
Behan also picks up on the issue of partners investing in training and certification around the products they specialise in. This makes them better equipped “to engage with customers, explore their data/analytical/BI requirements and build solutions around them”.
From Exertis’ perspective, the company’s role as a value added distributor for IBM is to see that the vcndor actively promotes “the key messaging around Big Data and analytical solutions, along with the technical skills and resources to help partners promote Big Data solutions to their clients”.
The distributor works closely with IBM “around Big Data to ensure our partners have access to dedicated solution experts and marketing collateral to allow them to engage with their clients to successfully take the user from concept right through to deployment”.
Trevaskis says that vendors need to ensure they have the basics right for their partners. “Dell can ensure that not only do you have the right hardware in place but we can also offer services to support deployment of a wide range of toolsets including Microsoft and SAP. We have proven success across Europe with this model.”
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