Bold moves needed on move to cloud - CRN Cloud Conference

Industry execs talk VARs shifting to cloud at CRN Cloud Conference today

Channel firms have opened up about how to succeed in the cloud at CRN's Cloud Conference today, with Ancoris boss David McLeman claiming tough decisions and bold steps are necessary.

The event was held at American Square Conference Centre in London, and focused on helping resellers find their place in the cloud market.

Ancoris CEO McLeman delivered the keynote speech, focusing on how his firm managed to move away from its traditional roots. He said tough decisions were necessary.

"We decided we weren't going to pay our sales teams a penny for selling legacy products anymore," he said. "Resellers can't keep doing what they always did."

McLeman spoke about the issues the VAR faced when shifting to the cloud.

He explained: "We realised the most important thing was helping our customers understand how they can move into the cloud. The hardest thing for us was the shift to subscription services. Not everyone can stomach it. We were small enough to bite the bullet."

Elsewhere in his address, he looked at the move from selling traditional products to selling cloud solutions, investing in infrastructure versus partnering with major vendors, and how to transform your financial model to make money selling cloud.

Logicalis chief digital officer Chris Gabriel also presented, explaining how resellers can differentiate themselves from other VARs and smaller cloud vendors offering cloud services.

He used Logicalis as an example of how it developed its own cloud offering, talking about what value can be added to VARs' cloud solutions.

"I think the channel has to really think about where we are leading our customers into this world of not managing and fixing things, but managing services," Gabriel said.

"We have an interesting challenge as a reseller over the next few years, as all the skills we have built up are no longer useful.

"Everything is talking to the cloud whether we like it to or not now, and the early adopters of new technology such as IoT in the cloud are going to be big game-changers for us."