Distribution done differently: How Crayon, a SoftwareOne Company, is powering partner growth

AI is powerful technology, but it is also highly disruptive and actively rewriting the value equation for the channel. In their haste to embrace AI, customers aren’t looking for licensing support. They need something broader, and partners that can shape strategy, manage risk and connect technology to business outcomes across increasingly complex cloud, AI, governance and security environments.

Against that backdrop, Mathew Howard, who leads Crayon's channel business across Australia and New Zealand, sat down at Connect 2026 in Sydney to unpack what the SoftwareOne and Crayon combination means for partners.

The crux is that the combined business offers partners distribution done differently: a model built for partners and focused on powering their growth, backed by the breadth and scope that SoftwareOne brings to the equation.

What are partners being asked to deliver now that goes beyond the traditional licensing model?

AI is in every conversation at the moment, in every boardroom and every vendor roadmap session, and it is doing two things at once. It is both the greatest opportunity we have seen for some time and the biggest risk.

We are seeing three fundamental shifts. Vendors are investing heavily in AI, but what is not spoken about is where that investment comes from: they are optimising their own organisations, and that puts downward pressure on margins. Second, there is greater automation across platforms than ever before, so traditional sources of channel value, like provisioning, deployment and optimisation, are shifting. Third, customer demand is changing because customers have far more information than ever.

Put those together and there is no longer the same value in just transacting the licensing. Partners are being asked to get involved much earlier, be far more strategic, and tie solutions to specific business outcomes.

Where are you seeing partners struggle most as they try to become more strategic and advisory?

Honestly, the ones struggling most are the ones remaining transactional, still pushing the technology itself without the solutions wrapped around it. That is where ongoing, repeatable business starts.

Three types of partners are emerging: those building services capability, particularly managed outcomes, because that is the ongoing repeatable engagement; those building IP, which creates repeatable differentiation in market; and hybrid partners working across on-premise, cloud and AI. Three different models, but all have moved away from the transaction.

With AI, the hard part is no longer the models. It is figuring out where to invest. Even on the conservative side, one in three AI projects fail, and they do not fail because the tech fails. It is because integration, governance and security were not appropriately dealt with. That is the value the partner of the future will bring.

Partners will need support behind them to deliver that value. What do they understand at this point about what SoftwareOne and Crayon coming together means for them?

There has been a lot of noise in the market, so it is a good opportunity to elaborate. Crayon saw the pressures coming onto partners, and we set out to be the distributor that helps them grow. So we invest in capability that partners can lean on, so our partners do not have to.

That could be technical pre-sales that moves a sale through the funnel faster, marketing support that brings in new leads, or professional services capability for partners building specialisation. And we put people before product. I still want our partners to be able to pick up the phone and reach a partner account manager, or have somebody at the boardroom table looking at growth opportunities in their business.

Coming together with SoftwareOne amplifies all of that. Two large organisations are combining their strengths, and SoftwareOne adds 30 years of professional and managed services experience in the enterprise space that we can now bring to market through channel partners.

What can partners expect from the combined business?

For our partners, this means continuity in how we work together today and expanded opportunity as we grow together tomorrow. The values, people and partner-led approach you know remains firmly in place, now supported by greater scale, deeper expertise and a stronger global ecosystem.

About 70 per cent of what SoftwareOne does in Australia is professional and managed services at the big end of town. We can now take capability delivered over and over at enterprise scale and identify what can scale through channel. Together with Parallo, a New Zealand managed services provider, and EMT, an Australian distributor focused on security vendors, we are creating a powerhouse of experience for customers and partners alike.

While we go through integration, we have been busy bringing new offerings to market. We have launched Google into Australia, which matters because so many of our partners manage hybrid environments and multi-cloud customers. We have also invested heavily in our new Cloud-iQ platform. It is not just a procurement tool. Partners get everything from provisioning through to insight into opportunities to grow their business, optimise their customers and drive innovation. We are bringing partners across to the platform now.

For partners that know they need help to reach these new opportunities, what should they consider when choosing who they partner with?

Ask your distributor: what are you doing to help me achieve the outcomes I am looking for? If your business today is transactional and you want to build professional or managed services capability, ask how they are helping you get there. The real value in the channel is in what you wrap around the transaction, not the transaction itself.

And if there is one thing I would ask partners to take away, it is this: do not try to do everything yourself. Innovation cannot be delivered by any one organisation.

Our job as the distributor is to link partners to the right vendors. We have been through this journey, we know the mistakes we made, and partners can lean on that experience to get from point A to point B faster.

Crayon Channel is becoming SoftwareOne in APAC. The evolution reflects a commitment to Distribution Done Differently, moving beyond transactional distribution to give partners the expertise, services and scale they need to accelerate customer outcomes and drive sustainable growth in the AI era.