A forum with Can-do attitude
The upcoming Canalys Channels Forum event offers resellers an invaluable source of market information. Sara Driscoll reports
Risk-taking is an essential attribute to being an entrepreneur, and resellers and channel players are born entrepreneurs. However, risks should always be calculated; they should be taken with education. City traders do not simply go onto the trading floor, investing millions of pounds, and albeit taking risks, with no knowledge or information. Knowledge, according to Francis Bacon, is Power.
But where can channel players find this knowledge? How can channel players become experts in their field and have the knowledge to understand the risks they are taking every day? Canalys, the channel analyst company, in association with CRN is holding the Canalys Channels Forum event, which aims to give resellers and channel players a vital insight into their market, how to operate within it and how to make their business a success.
To be held in Monaco on 4-6 September, the event is the first dedicated European independent channel event for the past 10 years, Steve Brazier, chief executive of Canalys, told CRN, which is exclusive media partner at the event. “People have been asking us to do some kind of European analyst event for a long time,” he said. “We have done lots of research into what a channel event should have, what resellers want to hear about and how we can make a difference to their business by holding this event.”
Brazier said in the past channel conferences have fallen foul of two things; usually the speakers are just vendor sales pitches, who reseller partners don’t want to hear, and second, the audience ends up being mostly vendors anyway.
“Our conference will be different. Our main three sponsors – Microsoft, Cisco and Hewlett-Packard (HP) – are bringing their reseller base with them,” Brazier said. “They have each agreed to bring a certain number of resellers to the event and help those resellers to fund their trip.”
The event has several USP elements to it, Brazier said. The event is about networking and meeting people; therefore, there is time scheduled for one-to-one meetings, and everyattendee gets a personalised meeting schedule. The sponsors will also have breakout sessions, which means if a reseller wants to request a meeting with the head of HP’s channel, for example, this could be made to happen. Finally, Brazier said, the keynotes are not made up of vendor heads.
One person at the keynote session who is sure to draw a crowd is football referee Pierluigi Collina. He is talking about how to manage rich successful men, and how to man manage in tricky situations. “His experiences on the football field having to manage some of the most famous and successful players in the world as a referee, has certain synergies with the channel,” Brazier said.
Another keynote presenter is Don Tapscott, the author of Wikinomics. “Don will be talking about the Web 2.0 phenomenon and how resellers can run their businesses better with customer and supplier contact, blogs and feedback forums,” said Brazier. Other keynote speakers will be announced nearer the time.
“The point of the Channel Forum is not for us or vendors to talk about technology and products,” he said. “It is to help resellers to run their businesses better.”
The Forum will also have panel sessions involving the top vendors, top distributors and also the top resellers. There will also be a question and answer session from the audience. Everyone who registers to attend the event will receive a questionnaire to submit questions to the panel, making everyone at the event a participant, as well as attendee.
There are also breakout sessions that will cover topics such as unified communications and Web 2.0.
“This is an unparalleled opportunity to attend a senior channel independent event based solely around resellers,” Brazier said. “It will be the crème de la crème of the European channel. The sessions are designed to give ideas on how VARs can climb to the forefront of the industry.
“Europe has nothing like this event and all delegates will receive exclusive channel research – it is utterly independent and above all there are no sales pitches.”
Resellers who are interested in registering for the event should go to the web site. VARs should also start to ask their vendors whether they are attending and hope for an invitation that way.