Channel organisations are behind their customers in terms of achieving digital transformation and could be “digitally distraught” rather than “digitally determined”.
That analysis was offered at Ingram Micro’s ONE APAC event in Singapore by IDC’s group vice president for Asia-Pacific Sandra Ng, who said that about 60 percent of organisations knew they needed a plan to adopt cloud and SaaS and change work practices, but struggled to do so.
“For the distraught skills are the big challenge,” Ng told the conference audience. “They don’t know where the low hanging fruit can be found” in terms of easy starter projects for a digital transformation. Without those skills, they rightly worry about their future progress, Ng said.
The 40 per cent who are “determined” to change, she added, had well-governed teams dedicated to transformation. Those teams also own their own bottom lines.
Serving the digitally determined will require resellers to acquire digital marketing skills, move faster than usual to match their customers’ pace and form relationships well beyond the IT team, especially with chief digital officers. CRM is a must, Ng added.
Resellers will also need to change compensation plans away from rewarding big one-off deals and instead recognise the achievement of customers’ desired business outcomes.
Ng also told the Asia-Pacific region’s resellers to stop wanting to dominate deals and instead collaborate to meet customers needs. She also recommended selling solutions, not products alone, and co-creating those solutions with customers.
Happily, Ng said Australian resellers did this sort of thing as well as anyone in the region. But she added that people skilled In creating digital experiences remained very hard to find and hire.
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