Roundtable: Catch up with mobility

CRN: What about from a remote office/mobile workforce perspective or UC side of things? Is that also going
to happen?

Hayman: We're already starting to see, for the last year now, video based soft phones, the soft phone with a video component which will do a point-to-point video between two people. We're also seeing the evolution of Polycom desktop handsets, the VX series, video door phones coming to SMB - press a button on the front door and immediately every computer that's running this software, it will pop and we will see the guy standing at the front door.

A lot of SMBs are investing in a single video conference unit for their office because everyone else is doing it; it's a natural progression now for them to talk to another company via VC.

I think it's a long way off, maybe on every phonecall I don't necessarily want to see your face on the phone every time, but there's certainly a benefit to be able to have remote workers or office workers hooking into a central video conference for an SMB.

I think seeing people point-to-point all the time is not going to happen. I think the benefits are video-conferencing, door stations.

Friend: I think SMBs just don't have that business driver, they're too busy playing catch-up in other areas. Video is a nice to have but it's not a driver...

Hayman: I think the interest is definitely there. The amount of RFIs and documents that come across my desk that I'm specing up all have a video component in them now. You talk to vendors who have been selling video conference units at the moment, in the last two years their numbers have gone tenfold because people are cutting back on travel and using VC instead.

CRN: One more questions to wrap it up - it seems like skills is a real bottleneck. What do you think are the best kind of skills a reseller might need for 2011?

Treacy: I see that as the mirage in the desert - everyone's trying to get there. You think you're there, you're fully skilled up, I'm across all the things you need to, and then it's just gone again.

McKinnel: If you have a look at the small to medium integrators or resellers there's a lot of very junior or typically orientated people and not a lot of commercially savvy people - I'm not talking consultants but people with project skills or just general well-rounded experience.

Friend: You're right - what the resellers need to do when they're looking at their skills, there's a vested need to get skills in a particular area and a lot focus too hard on that when they need to build that more solution-rounded skill set. Then they know how to sit down and have that constructive discussion with their customer to propose a solution and look at it as a whole.

Abraham: That's the thing - it depends what you're chasing. Are we chasing one revolving around self-actualisation with an employee, getting them to be all they can be, understanding business and business acumen and having commercial discussions, or are we chasing a me-too approach. Some of these courses people send their staff on you can just do over the web and it really shows up.

Penno: I think there's a trade-off to be had, particularly at a technical level, in the depth of knowledge. Do I want someone who is very, very good and has a strong knowledge base in this one niche area or do I want someone who has a breadth of knowledge and maybe not the depth and how do I balance that with people with business acumen as well.

Pregnell: A lot of those partners themselves are SMBs and tend to have blinkers on with regard to their own skill sets - we do this and this, we've established this relationship with XYZ vendor and it's worked well for us so we're not going to change it.

For 2011 the successful resellers will be those who take the blinkers off and take a step back and certify and train yourself up, but importantly be prepared to form more collaborative relationships with more vendors. As opposed to yourself, just like the customer you're talking to, continuing to make incremental ad hoc sort of decisions year to year as to which vendor you're going to partner with, which product you're going to push and so on.

Basically increase the depth and breadth of the relationships you have with the vendors because then you can bring a broader, more strategic, overall more effective solution down to the customer.

Treacy: You need people with experience I guess. Instead of just chasing certs, you get people who are supposed to be experts in something, they've just done a week of training and they have no idea. Sometimes someone with experience in the industry, has been around, they would do a better job of having that technology deployed in your organisation than someone with a week's worth of training.