Orrin Broberg

Focus on sales collaboration, education, and strategic incentives form foundation of the new Connect Partner Program

The 2013 UCStrategies UC Channel Study is complete, and the results are compiled. It's clear that 2013 will be another year of transition for the industry. The good news is that, overwhelmingly, the channel is looking at solid growth for UC products and services. Ninety-six percent of the Solution Integrators (SI's) we surveyed experienced growth in their UC business in 2012, with 33 percent reporting over 20 percent growth.

It's not as far-fetched as you may think.

I have pointed out in past articles that there is a need to put the "V" back in VAR. The value of any technology is what it does, not what it is. UC by itself is not a solution. In the recent IBM white paper entitled The Business of Social Business, the authors do a nice job of describing three strategic opportunities presented by the application of unified communications technologies. These areas are:

Maybe the time has come to seriously reconsider the SI/reseller business model. The days of being aligned with one primary vendor are numbered as market transition continues. As the top vendors all seem to have similar features, SIs are looking for ways to drive UC solutions they don't fully understand while maintaining control of their clients. Vendors are pursuing blended direct sales strategies that increasingly cast SIs as fulfillment partners. This tug of war is a result of the channel losing its value-added relevance to both vendors and enterprises.

As I write this article the annual NFL draft has just ended. Like many teams, my beloved Vikings had a long list of priority positions to fill and we fans look optimistically to the future. Planning for success in our evolving UC business is a very similar process. The UC cloud is upon us like a new football season. How will we plan and prepare our organizations for success? We know that we need to grow professional services but by how much and with what players?