CRN Pipeline 2022 day two wrap up: keynotes and roundtables on the channel's pressing issues

More than 150 resellers, vendors and distributors across Australia came together at this year’s CRN Pipeline 2022 held at the Sheraton Grand Mirage Resort in the Gold Coast.

After a welcome dinner at the Fisherman's Wharf Tavern on the evening of 23 August, the following morning kicked off with a number of keynote speeches, panel discussions and roundtables on some pressing topics.

Starting off the day was Korn Ferry VP of technology Bridget Gray, who discussed how Australian companies can effectively compete for top tech talent amid the ongoing tech skills crunch.

Gray said companies should look to reimagine their employee’s existing capabilities, lay out their value proposition as an employer and foster employee experience and culture if they want to attract top IT talent to their businesses.

“The power has shifted. Candidates are running the show, and they are interviewing organisations now instead of the other way around,” Gray said.

“There’s certainly a lot more jobs than available candidates, and we are unable to easily access international talent like we once could - and that's fundamentally very challenging - and there is a pay war because of the demand, with salaries, rates and everything else continuing to ramp up.”

After the keynote, Gray joined Greg Lalle from ConnectWise, Owen Johnson from Comvision Australia, David Norris from Nortec IT to discuss more on the skills shortage, sharing their own experiences and insights.

Sticking to the topic of the skills shortage CRN Pipeline sponsor Delinea, through channel chief Kris Hansen, followed up with a discussion on managed security services, and the opportunity and offerings in a world of skills shortages.

Economist and managing director of Market Economics Stephen Koukoulas discussed the economic climate and what the IT channel should expect moving forward.

Koukoulas said despite the challenges we currently see in the economy, channel partners should hold nerve and be prepared for a coming turnaround, with inflation set to ease next year.

"There are things that are really evident right now, with inflation set to rise to eight percent this year," he said. "But there are signs that [these challenges] have started to come off a little bit."

Following the keynote, Dean Calvert of Calvert Technologies, Craig Sims of CCNA, Joe Perrone of Macquarie Bank and Peter Eldon of Access4 joined Koukoulas in a panel discussion, sharing their thoughts on the next wave of growth in the IT sector.

Wrapping up the morning sessions was a panel discussion with Exagrid, with CRN editor William Maher joining Graham Woods and Andy Walsky to discuss storage, security and how a channel partner can use them to grow their business.

After lunch, Nick Abrahams of Norton Rose Fulbright kick-started the afternoon sessions with a keynote speech on how the IT channel can take advantage of the upstart Web 3.0 world.

Joining Abrahams after the keynote were Kristin Boesenberg from KPMG, Brad Bond from Mantel Group and Leo Lynch form Check Point, where they discussed potential opportunites in Web 3.0.

Shaun Witherden from Datto later took the stage to discuss cyber resilience, specifically on using security frameworks to help grow revenue.

After the keynotes, delegates were divided up into three roundtables and a breakout session all running concurrently.

The breakout session was led by Netvault technical director Radek Tkaczyk, where he discussed satellite technology for broadband and other services, including StarLink and low-earth orbit (LEO) satellites.

BeyondTrust hosted a roundtable, discussing with selected delegates on how to get clients off the cyber-compliance treadmill. The second roundtable was hosted by Exagrid, which discussed storage, security, and how channel partners can use it to grow their business. Another roundtable was with cloud distributor Pax8, discussing the buying, selling and managing of cloud services.