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CompTIA is a non-profit trade association that provides IT channel education, training, and certifications. They also provide valuable market research on the IT industry and channel, which is where today’s guest, Carolyn April, comes in. Carolyn is the Senior Director of Industry Analysis. Each year she works on the IT Industry Trends Report, based on surveys of both IT customers and partners. This year’s report reflects strong optimism in the IT channel with some important findings for channel chiefs.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
CompTIA’s 2022 IT Industry Trends report includes 10 key trends to watch. Here are 3 IT Channel Trends Carolyn shared that you should be considering for your partner strategy in 2022 and beyond:
- Channel Cybersecurity still has a way to go. MSPs have been shifting their business to security, becoming MSSPs. Yet, cybersecurity is a discipline that is table stakes for all types of channel partners, not just MSPs. It’s not a nice to have, but a need to have, for many customers. And many partners are still lagging on their cybersecurity practices. You can’t go to a customer to talk about your primary line of business and not have a security discussion that goes along with it.
- Consulting is today’s channel opportunity. Customer experience is now seen as the top competitive differentiator, creating a greater need for partner-delivered services. That means that partners, who may be feeling removed from the transaction, need to insert themselves more before the transaction as technology experts and after the transaction as consultants. And it means vendors need to rethink their partner programs, incentives, training and development programs.
- Partner Marketing is more important than ever. The channel has been notorious about not being good at marketing, but now partner investment in marketing is increasing. Partners realize they can now longer brand themselves based on the vendor they represent. They must make a name for themselves around customer experience and the business outcomes they are driving. That means vendors need to think beyond just throwing MDF at partners and help partners learn how to be innovative and creative with their own marketing.
LINKS & RESOURCES
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- Follow Carolyn on LinkedIn
- Get a copy of the CompTIA 2022 IT Industry Trends report
- Save the date for CompTIA ChannelCon 2022
- Listen to Jay McBain’s 10 Channel Predictions For 2022
- Learn more about Allbound
