Larry Walsh, chief analyst at Channelnomics, discusses the performance challenges that channel chiefs face, explaining that they’re rooted in a fundamental misunderstanding of partner business models and ill-conceived presumptions about partner capabilities. Being a channel chief isn’t easy. Channel leaders face numerous challenges, including getting partners to perform in a way that contributes to company goals and revenue-generation expectations. This underlying challenge is amplified by the s...
Jun 07, 2022•13 min•Ep. 56
Ingram Micro Cloud’s John Dusett joins Changing Channels host Larry Walsh to discuss new cloud research — conducted by Channelnomics and supported by Ingram Micro Cloud, Microsoft, and Google Workspace — and how the customer experience is crucial when it comes to service renewals and expansions. The cloud computing market continues to grow at double-digit rates. Over the next decade, businesses will continue to migrate systems and mission-critical workloads into cloud environments. They’ll adopt...
May 03, 2022•29 min•Ep. 55
TeamViewer’s Patty Nagle and Rob Thiele join Changing Channel’s Larry Walsh to discuss how they’re revamping their channel program to accelerate the company’s evolution into more use cases and market opportunities beyond their remote-access foundation. Many products start out as free, consumer-oriented offerings to capture market share for what’s often a singular purpose or value proposition. Over time, they evolve into more business-ready, enterprise-centric solutions. The trick is building the...
Apr 27, 2022•31 min•Ep. 54
Larry Walsh, chief analyst at Channelnomics, provides an overview of how the Russian war on Ukraine is affecting global and regional economies, and how the conflict will impact the technology industry and channels. The Russian war on Ukraine isn’t a regional conflict. While the fighting is happening across the plains and marshlands of the Ukrainian heartland, the war is having a cascading effect of human and economic disruption around the world. As Walsh explains, the war will cause significant ...
Apr 12, 2022•40 min•Ep. 53
Larry Walsh talks to Hitachi Vantara Senior Vice President of Strategic Partners and Alliances Kim King on automating quoting for partners to ensure fast, easy access to accurate pricing with minimal human interaction. Buyer expectations have evolved. No longer are companies willing to wait for weeks for quotes on their IT projects. They want the same “Amazon Experience” in their business purchasing that they get in their consumer lives. In other words, they want quotes in days, if not hours. Qu...
Apr 05, 2022•33 min•Ep. 35
Larry Walsh talks with Acronis CEO Patrick Pulvermueller about the impact the war in Ukraine is having on the technology market and channel, efforts made to help refugees, and how the Russian invasion is changing strategic and contingency planning. The war in Ukraine, now raging for more than a month, woke governments and companies around the world out of their complacency. The dystopian-like order of the Cold War returned with a vengeance, causing many technology industry leaders to rethink the...
Mar 29, 2022•23 min•Ep. 34
Larry Walsh talks to monday.com Senior Channel Partner Manager Sarit Chalamish about how vendors can step outside of their comfort zone and embrace creative business solutions to pave the way for unparalleled opportunities for growth and success across all levels of an organization. As any channel professional knows, building a successful partner program is no simple task. Starting from scratch and finding the right partners to connect with takes a tremendous amount of concentrated relationship-...
Mar 16, 2022•26 min•Ep. 33
Michelle Hodges, vice president of worldwide channels at GitLab, joins host Larry Walsh to discuss how channel executives can develop better relationships with board members while showcasing the benefits of the channel. Channel chiefs are often challenged in explaining and demonstrating the value of partner programs and relationships to decision-makers in their organizations. Having a seat at the management table means having a voice in strategy and decision-making. In business, there’s no bigge...
Mar 08, 2022•25 min•Ep. 32
Rob Rae, senior vice president of Datto, joins Channelnomics’ Changing Channels host Larry Walsh to discuss why vendors often struggle when building service channels and how to get the most out of MSP relationships. As the shift away from transactional sales models and toward service- and consumption-based paradigms progresses, vendors are realizing that managed service providers may be the ideal target for building out their indirect sales. That’s because MSPs are entrenched in current revenue ...
Feb 22, 2022•36 min•Ep. 28
Craig Crescas, Cloud Solution Architect at Microsoft, and Mathew Batterbee, Global Head of Business Applications at Ingram Micro Cloud, join Changing Channels host Larry Walsh to discuss how partners can leverage the benefits of advanced cloud applications and help customers do the same. As the digital transformation continues to barrel ahead, with no signs of slowing down, advanced cloud-based applications are increasingly imperative in helping organizations to automate processes, maintain accu...
Feb 08, 2022•29 min•Ep. 29
Ted Schuman, founder and CEO of PlanetOne, joins Channelnomics’ Changing Channels host Larry Walsh to discuss how vendors can better leverage data to improve customer experience and communication across the channel. It’s easy to say we’re living in the data age, and that data is the new fuel of the business engine, but it’s a lot harder to execute on that vision than it seems. Big Data remains one of the biggest challenges many companies face as they seek to collect, manage, normalize, and analy...
Jan 25, 2022•31 min•Ep. 26
Louise McEvoy, vice president of U.S. channels at Trend Micro, joins Channelnomics Changing Channels host Larry Walsh to discuss how channel professionals can change their mindset and embrace the reality of change. We’ve probably all heard the saying, “the only constant in life is change,” and it’s true. The channel is on the brink of a major transformation. Shifting priorities, digital transformation, and new sources of revenue mean that vendors and partners alike are being forced to re-evaluat...
Jan 11, 2022•35 min•Ep. 25
Changing Channels host Larry Walsh recounts the highlights of 2021’s 26 episodes with some of our top guests and industry luminaries. Many people in the world would say that 2021 is not a year they’d want to repeat, given the ongoing pandemic, inflation, and supply-chain disruptions. Suffice it to say that the world is hardly back to normal. But the channel perseveres. In 2021, Changing Channels invited some of the top channel executives and thought leaders to share their experiences and insight...
Dec 22, 2021•32 min•Ep. 24
Nick Tidd, vice president of global channel sales at Poly, joins Channelnomics’ Changing Channels host Larry Walsh to discuss how vendors can better meet customers’ evolving technology needs. The COVID-19 pandemic changed the way the world thinks about work as employees grew accustomed to using their own devices and technology platforms. Now, as employees return to the office, they’re seeking the same rich technology experience to which they’ve become accustomed. Employers are stepping up to mee...
Dec 08, 2021•34 min•Ep. 23
Sandeep Gupta, Lead of Strategic Partnerships at Google Cloud, joins Channelnomics Changing Channels host Larry Walsh to discuss how Google Workspace can help ensure productivity and meaningful connection for everyone during this transitory time. Spurred by difficult conditions wrought by the pandemic over the past two years, the world’s been forced to adopt more flexible, fluid work arrangements. Mobile devices, persistent high-speed Internet, and cloud-based applications make working from home...
Nov 30, 2021•27 min•Ep. 22
Channelnomics’ Larry Walsh discusses the debate around the true value of the channel’s long tail and explains some of the misconceptions about this cadre of partners. By definition, the long tail is a collection of partners that contribute little and are considered low-value on an individual level but generate a large sum of revenue collectively. In practice, the long tail is a concept that few in the channel completely understand and even fewer know how to address. That begs the question: Can t...
Nov 09, 2021•9 min•Ep. 21
Denzil Samuels, vice president of the global CX Partner Practice at Cisco, joins Channelnomics Changing Channels host Larry Walsh to discuss how vendors can enable partners to meet shifting customer experience expectations. Customer experience is the new name of the game. While “the customer is always right” might not always be true in practice, what is certainly true is that as the technology market shifts to a service-based model, customer experience is the deciding factor for service success....
Oct 26, 2021•31 min•Ep. 20
Wendy Thomas, CEO of Secureworks, joins Channelnomics’s Changing Channels host Larry Walsh to discuss how security services are instrumental in helping businesses keep up with the security arms race. Security is an arms race. With each advancement in technology, hackers find ways of one-upping the defenders of a business’s digital frontiers. Security breaches always have consequences. In the past, a compromise could mean losing access to files or being blocked from mission-critical applications,...
Oct 12, 2021•27 min•Ep. 19
Mark Stiving, chief pricing educator at Impact Pricing, joins Channelnomics’ Changing Channels host Larry Walsh to talk about pricing, discounting, and channel sales strategies. No one wants to pay full price for anything. And people love winning. So it shouldn’t be a surprise that when it comes to the list price of products, people are always looking for a discount. They want to win a deal. Through partners, manufacturers often offer significant discounts on their products to meet this negotiat...
Sep 28, 2021•29 min•Ep. 18
Channelnomics and Ingram Micro Cloud, with the support of Microsoft and Google Workspace, unveil the 2021 State of the U.S. Cloud Channel report, the fourth annual study on trends around cloud computing among resellers and service providers. John Dusett, executive director of cloud services in the U.S. for Ingram Micro Cloud, and Chris Gonsalves, senior vice president of research at Channelnomics, join Channelnomics’ Changing Channels host Larry Walsh to talk about strengths and weaknesses among...
Sep 14, 2021•31 min•Ep. 17
Christian Alvarez, senior vice president of worldwide channel sales and all routes to market at Nutanix, joins Channelnomics’ Changing Channels host Larry Walsh to talk about creating meaningful and contextual channel key performance indicators (KPIs). A common challenge among channel professionals is proving the relative worth of partner programs and productivity. Everyone knows that KPIs are essential for measuring and monitoring channel performance and success. The question that vexes many ch...
Sep 08, 2021•30 min•Ep. 16
Oracle NetSuite's Craig West joins Channelnomics' Changing Channels host Larry Wals to discuss the importance of continuous partner enablement. They say it takes money to make money. One of the ways vendors use money to make money is through the enablement of their partners. This investment leads to the creation and cultivation of partnerships that are – in many cases – more productive. Partners enabled through technology and sales training generate more revenue for their vendors. While training...
Aug 31, 2021•27 min•Ep. 15
Bill Cate, vice president of marketing and channels at Zebra Technologies, joins Channelnomics’ Changing Channels host Larry Walsh to discuss the role of non-transacting partners in go-to-market strategy. Partners come in various models and sizes. The common trait is that they sell and support technology products produced by vendors. At least that’s what conventional channel wisdom says. But the channel is replete with non-transacting partners – companies and professionals that influence end cus...
Aug 24, 2021•25 min•Ep. 14
Laurie Mitchell, vice president of partner and international marketing at Wasabi Technologies, joins Channelnomics’ Changing Channels host Larry Walsh to discuss how a midstage technology start-up expands into the international channel. Wading into international waters is a tricky proposition for many technology companies. The complexities of localization, the individualities of different markets, the unique needs of customers in various parts of the world, and the expenses involved in developin...
Aug 17, 2021•21 min•Ep. 13
Andy Martin, vice president of global partner sales at Pure Storage, joins Channelnomics’ Changing Channels host Larry Walsh to discuss the challenges and rewards of transitioning to a subscription-based sales model. The subscription model, under which technology is sold based on access and use rather than as a one-off transaction, is changing the way businesses acquire and consume said technology. It’s also giving customers greater flexibility to plan, utilize, and budget for their technology n...
Aug 10, 2021•29 min•Ep. 12
Heather K. Margolis, the founder of Channel Maven and Spark My Channel, joins Channelnomics’ Changing Channels host Larry Walsh to discuss how marketing to and through channel partners is changing and what most technology companies get wrong. If you want sales, you need to start with marketing. It’s a well-worn refrain in the channel that partners are subpar at marketing. According to Channelnomics research, between 60% and 80% of partners have no marketing plans, and the majority lack marketing...
Aug 03, 2021•38 min•Ep. 11
Alyssa Fitzpatrick joins Channelnomics’ Changing Channels host Larry Walsh to discuss Microsoft’s innovative co-sell program in which it’s become the driver of independent software vendor products that complement the Azure cloud. Cloud computing ushered in whole new ways of selling, delivering, and consuming technology. Through cloud platforms, vendors earn recurring revenue while customers get access to robust, resilient resources at a more palatable expense. Driving cloud adoption and expanded...
Jul 13, 2021•33 min•Ep. 10
Renee Bergeron joins Channelnomics’ Changing Channels host Larry Walsh to discuss how innovative marketplace models are providing new avenues to market for technology vendors and partners. Marketplaces and online digital sales are increasing quickly. More than $6 trillion in B2B goods and reserves sales transact through marketplaces annually – nearly three times the volume of B2C activity. And a significant and increasing portion of that volume is technology products and services. Marketplace sa...
Jun 24, 2021•28 min•Ep. 9
Frank Cespedes joins Channelnomics’ Changing Channels host Larry Walsh to talk about effective sales and channel strategies in the post-pandemic economy. The COVID-19 pandemic left an indelible mark on the market – particularly when it comes to sales strategy and management. The emergence of digital collaboration and dominance of online marketplaces has many sales leaders and strategists looking for the next selling methodology to replace existing sales techniques and channels. But as much as th...
Jun 08, 2021•30 min•Ep. 8
Lori Cornmesser joins Channelnomics’ Changing Channels host Larry Walsh to talk about what it’s like for a channel chief to start over in a new role and find success in driving indirect sales. The average channel chief spends between 18 and 36 months in their role. From there, they often move on to a similar position in a different company. Review the resumes of some of the industry stalwarts and you’ll see a succession of channel leadership jobs, each requiring the same entry process of discove...
May 11, 2021•32 min•Ep. 7
