Like most people, I am also in a constant state of shock and disbelief as to what we are all experiencing in real-time. The extent of human tragedy is simply sad and astonishing. The movie Contagion that I saw (again this weekend) has new meaning. Besides staying home and allowing the essential services and experts to do their job to get this under control, we will do whatever we can to help the channel to ride this storm, save jobs and come out of this disaster stronger.
Social distancing is definitely the new buzzword for 2020!
This madness will eventually come to an end so between now and then, business owners and their employees will need to adapt and innovate to keep their companies alive, and come out stronger. Already, it’s comforting to see so many vendors and channel partners offering support and deals to help their customers ease the pain.
This week, I am hosting a series of THREE eChannelNews Webinar Interviews with some of the best industry leaders on how vendors and the channel are coping with the crisis how best to navigate this storm. There will be live Q&A so bring your questions and tips.
Attend all 3 to get wide and deep perspectives from an A team in channel business development.
Jay McBain (Forrester): Wednesday March 25 at 10 AM EDT
Register NOW
Rob Rae (Datto): Thursday March 26 at 2 PM EDT
Register NOW
Michelle Ragusa-McBain (JSG): Friday March 27th at 2 PM EDT
Register NOW
What ransomware did to boost the security industry, this pandemic may do for digital transformation.
The future for businesses will most likely include lots of remote capabilities and more automation. Companies who make things will probably adapt with more robotics. The situation has pushed more businesses to go online and this trend should accelerate. Regardless of what you believe, businesses will be thinking differently when this storm ends.
Check my top 10 things that vendors should be baking into their channel development. My biggest suggestion is to shift to being a virtual warrior instead of a road warrior.
Check my Plan B for VARs and MSPs. My biggest suggestion to channel partners is to join a mastermind peer group to collaborate and future-proof. Regularly meet with eight of your peers virtually to talk, exchange ideas and help each other! When the dust settles, you can meet each other face-to-face. You will never regret this decision!
Check out a recorded webinar I did last week with channel partners on how they are coping and leading their business. One MSP was kind enough to share an e-book that he wrote on the topic.
Leverage what you wish from this information. Send me your insights and advice as I am looking for all perspectives. Always open to doing eChannelNEWS podcasts or webinars to share more ideas. Just completed one with a VoIP company called United Cloud that seems to have a brilliant solution that’s ideal for channel partners to help their customers work from home.
I will keep on supporting the tech industry by doing whatever I can and sharing some advice that may help the channel to get back up to speed as quickly as possible.
TechnoPlanet is already offering vendors a monthly payment plan for channel development services and channel partners can become a Channel Partner Alliance member for FREE to get loads of support and a FREE e-procurement tool to check prices, availability and place/track orders with all major distributors (including Ingram Micro, Tech Data and Synnex).
