Pipeline 2021: Partners talk vendor relations in 2021

The past 18 months have seen areas of huge huge acceleration in the application of technology. The implementation of productivity tools, the shift to work from home and the need to secure all these systems. Then, of course, there is the need to expand or even begin the shift to cloud based computing. Customers are innovating around new ways of working.

To see all the great content from this year's CRN Pipeline click here.

For the CRN community, the vendor they work with don’t necessarily display the same flexibility. Some do, but others are as much a hindrance as a help says Geoff Augutis the co-owner of Queensland Computers.

“They get in the way of us doing business and the reason for that is vendors have traditionally been very deal registration focused,” he says.

"The Cisco's of the world still live and breathe by that sort of stuff. What we're finding is that as we've gotten larger, and as we've gotten runs on the board, we are seeing vendors starting to actually want to offer their assistance rather than become a force of resistance for us.

“So really, there's vendors out there that that try hard to contribute. And people like Lenovo do put a lot of effort into that. But we found traditionally tier ones are quite set in their ways.”

The best vendors add real value to the relationship, whether that’s qualifying and encouraging the lead or providing expertise, says Sachin Khisti, managing director of Carrington Associates.

“Most of the big vendors today are working through partners only,” he says. 

“We get a lot of leads from our vendors, and they are pretty warm. It's not just like XYZ is asking for something, no, they have already identified in terms of what the lead is, what they're looking for, what their budget is, and timeframe.

"We closely work with our vendors in that regard. And it's always nine out of ten times we close the deal because of the support that we get from both parties. As a partner we support them and as a vendor they support us as well.” 

The customer education role the vendors play is critical says TechConnect's head of sales Warren Venter.

“If they're bringing the customer to us, they've obviously educated them through the process,” he says. 

“By the time a customer comes to us, they're ready to buy cloud, they just need someone to help them do it. So those deep partnerships where the vendor understands our capability and they know they have trusted hands, they can they can really route customers to the best chance of success, so to speak.”

For more great insights from this year's CRN Pipeline click here.