Canalys Forum 2021: Reseller CEOs from Computacenter, Softcat, SCC and others weigh in on the biggest issues facing the channel

Mike Norris, Graeme Watt, Emma De Sousa and James Rigby among those to take part in Canalys roundtable

Top reseller bosses including Computacenter's Mike Norris, Softcat's Graeme Watt, Insight's Emma De Sousa and SCC's James Rigby were joined by channel bosses at some of the world's biggest vendors to discuss the most pressing issues facing the channel at a roundtable event during Canalys' EMEA Forum on Wednesday.

Among the topics up for discussion were hybrid and remote working, sustainability, cybersecurity challenges and shortages of both talent and products, along with plenty more.

Here are the some of the key things reseller and channel bosses had to say when asked by Canalys CEO Steve Brazier about these topics…

Hybrid working

Among the topics up for discussion was the move to hybrid working, and specifically what policies the big resellers attending the event were implementing in their own workplaces.

Watt said Softcat was "going with a flexible and hybrid model" but stressed they were trying to "nudge and lead rather than tell people" because "people don't like to be told what to do having spent so long at home".

Computacenter CEO Mike Norris pointed out that people had started returning to football grounds, restaurants and conferences in big numbers but had not yet come back to the office "in the quantities you would've expected by now".

"You have a choice - you either deal with that or you make it more of an event to come to the office. That's your choice," he added.

He also shared an anecdote explaining how one of the Computacenter work councils had asked for a "firm agreement on flexible working" and said his response was: "If you have a firm agreement, it's not flexible, is it?", adding that the company will only commit to one-year agreements in the areas where there are agreed policies.

Insight's EMEA president Emma De Sousa pointed out that there is not a "one size fits all approach" and said employees are expected to come back around three days per week in the UK, adding that she hopes a busy event which took place at one of its offices recently will be a "great kickstart to remind people what it's like to be there with everybody".

And SCC's chief executive James Rigby said the company has "gone for a 3+2 policy across all the countries" and echoed Norris' claims that people are "drifting back rather than flooding back" to offices.

Sustainability

When it came to sustainability, all speakers agreed that it was one of the most pressing issues facing the channel and that change must happen in order to improve the situation.

Norris claimed that vendor country managers wanting to ship products in order to gain revenue and "hit their numbers" was a big factor holding back sustainability, calling for a stop to the "craziness".

"Can the vendors sort one thing out? We ship products all over the world. From the UK, we ship more product to Germany than anywhere else. From Germany, we ship more product to the UK than anywhere else. It is nuts," he said.

"We ship products between the US and Europe. The biggest driver of that and all of that cost is the vendor incentivisation and the way in which they pay their people. They need to sort that out to stop us shipping products all over the world. That is the biggest thing they could do, which costs them nothing. It just needs a bit of application."

In response, Anwar Dahab, Dell's senior vice-president of channel for EMEA, said it is a "joint responsibility" between "the vendor and the partner". "If you see it, let us know and we'll address it jointly," he added.

Luciana Broggi, HP's SVP and head of global route-to-market centre of excellence, said the response from the channel to the vendor's Amplify Impact programme has been "amazing" and stressed that sustainability is "not something we can do individually, it's a chain".

And Lenovo's chief channel officer for EMEA, Fiona O'Brien, pointed out the need for vendors to "take back assets and bring them back into the circular economy", something Atea's CEO Steinar Sontesby agreed with. "The most important thing that we are doing and that I think everybody should do is to reuse and recycle," he said.

"Take back your old equipment when you sell new equipment."

Cybersecurity

Another issue identified as one of the most significant facing the channel moving forward was cybersecurity, with Norris claiming that it was the "biggest risk to any business in the world".

"Everything pales into insignificance. The amount of money we are having to spend on our own security is enormous and the amount of money customers spend is enormous. It is a huge opportunity and a huge risk," he said.

In his keynote speech, Canalys' CEO Steve Brazier said that insider penetration of company networks will be a huge threat for all businesses in the future, and Alessandro Ballerio, CEO of Elmec Informatica, when asked about what the key areas of focus will be next year at the end of the roundtable gave a simple answer: "Cybersecurity, cybersecurity, cybersecurity," he said.

And Cancom's CEO, Rudolf Hotter, highlighted the difficulty of hiring cybersecurity staff as an area where companies were vulnerable, claiming it had proved "nearly impossible" while adding that Cancom has changed the way it hires and now takes candidates straight from university.

Shortages

Shortages of staff, as well as products due partly to a lack of semiconductors, was also discussed in more depth.

Adam Tarbox, vice-president of EMEA channel sales for Nutanix, raised the point of staff retention being a key issue, and said: "It's not just about finding talent in the market and how good your recruitment strategy is, but what are you doing to retain your key talent within your business?"

Norris said that shortages of talent in the industry is a "much better issue to have than too much talent" which he claimed "tends to be a disaster because you have to lay people off".

"You just have to have to be better than anybody else in terms of being able to recruit and hire, so I like shortage of talent, I think it's a good thing for business," he added.

"Shortage of product is boring and it destroys your balance sheet. It means we're probably carrying $100m of inventory higher than we would like to because of shortages, because you can't fulfil components."

And, finally, Ballerio identified two areas to improve the shortage of talent issue - one being to "hire better and to spend a lot of money to hire and retain talent" and the other being to use the talent available more effectively than is being seen at the moment.