'Hold your vendors accountable', urges Polycom channel chief

Nick Tidd, Polycom's Global Partner Organisation VP, on the challenges facing the channel and his advice for VARs

Describe your company in five words or fewer.

Unified collaboration solutions.

Tell us about how your channel program works.

The Polycom Partner Network consists of eight partner segments to build on the partners' strength and customised to align with each partner's unique business model.

Our program provides strong incentives for partners to invest in and grow their business with Polycom. Based on our key principles of simplicity, transparency, accountability and business velocity, this program is designed to drive profitable growth for our partners and Polycom.

In summary, our program is designed to increase customer success through partner loyalty and profitability.

What do you think is the most challenging trend in the channel today?

The financial models and the way in which revenue is being recognised are evolving quickly, which in turn has the delivery models changing. The movement from CapEx to OpEx is the first phase which in the short term has the partner recognising lower top line revenue. But as their recurring revenue stream grows, their business becomes much profitable and predictable.

You then combine the as a service model, and hardware vendors need to rethink their supply channel models. Customers want to bundle various vendors together in a subscription model, so distribution becomes a key component. The management platform of this combined with various cost models, service models and delivery models makes for a dynamically changing partner model.

If you had to give your channel partners one piece of advice, what would it be?

Don't stand still, stay relevant and create stickiness within your customer base.

Hold your vendors accountable to support you with the right portfolio of products, knowledge transfer and sales enablement. Have you vendor be a "trusted advisor" and not a "supplier".

What are the three most important things partners need from vendors to be successful?

Sales enablement

Demand generation

Knowledge transfer

What is your favorite conference location?

Barcelona, Spain, because of the city, culture and ambiance.

What IT trends do you expect to see dying out over the next 18 months to two years?

Single platform solutions and devices that do not support multi-use and that are not self-learning and adaptive will die out.