There will be a special bonus for anyone participating in CDN’s annual Channel Innovation Awards on Wednesday, Apr.26th.
The event, which honours the nation’s top solution providers, will take place at The Broadview Hotel in Toronto and be viewable online. This year’s theme is Evolving the Channel Ecosystem Amid Digital Transformation and those who attend, live or virtually, will not only enjoy a keynote presentation and panel discussion on the topic, but will also receive a copy of the 2023 edition of the Top 100 Solution Providers Industry Benchmark Report.
Leveraging ITWC’s annual research, the report, written by Mary Whittle, principal of Strategic Innovations Matters Inc., an IT consultancy, represents a true snapshot of what transpired last year among Canada’s top value added resellers (VARs), managed service providers (MSPs), systems integrators and IT consultants.
That snapshot, she says, not only “examines revenue numbers from top channel performers, but what industry sectors represented their primary focus over the last 12 months. In other words, this is an opportunity to look at where the channel is spending most of its time. This is particularly important today, given the current economic challenges that exist not only in Canada, but around the world.”
Other key trends that will be discussed in the document, says Whittle, revolve around two developing themes: the importance of Customer Lifecyle Management (CLM), and the importance of developing sound environmental, social and governance (ESG) practices to support the growing needs of client organizations.
Zendesk, a company that builds customer relationship management software, stated in a blog released last month that CLM is “closely entwined with customer relationship management (CRM) and is ultimately a culmination of multiple customer-related metrics businesses monitor over time. It consists of assigning metrics to each stage of the consumer lifecycle and analyzing them to better understand performance.”
Whittle says her findings reveal that with sound CLM strategies in place, everyone wins: the vendor, of course, the channel partner or partners, and last, but not least, the end-user customer.
On the ESG front, one of Cisco’s key predictions for 2023 is that responsible innovation will move quickly toward building a better, more inclusive future for all. Organizations, it said late last year, “are expected to put their good intentions into action – being purpose-driven is now a corporate requirement. Trust in our institutions and in companies has been tested over the last few years.
“This has brought us to an inflection point, and we are on the edge of generational change that will become evident through technology in 2023. Ultimately, organizations will have to define a purpose that goes beyond profitability.”
What it all means for the channel, says Whittle, is that “if they are not currently up to speed on what to do when it comes to developing a sound strategy around sustainability – it is critical they start soon.
“All you have to do is examine the sustainability policies relating to the channel from the likes of HP, HPE, VMware, Cisco, Salesforce and many other vendors to know that implementing ESG practices has moved from a nice-to-have to an impending need-to-have.
To register to attend the Channel Innovation Awards, click on this link.