'I've been surprised by organisations poaching employees from tech giants': 8 partners reveal their biggest surprises of 2022
From vendors ‘losing their way’ to partner overhauls, here we list what took some channel bosses by surprise this year
As we begin to wrap up 2022, CRN has been getting reflective on what a year it was for the channel.
The year has seen many ups with M&A activity thriving for UK resellers and MSPs.
On the other hand, 2022 has met its fair share of controversy such as Microsoft's contentious cloud partner programme changes touted as the biggest Microsoft channel change in a decade..
In light of this we asked eight partners to pick out what's taken them by surprise in 2022.
Alex Louth, Managing Director, Logicalis UK&I
"This last year, all channel organisations have continued to be massively impacted by the skills shortage. With businesses across industries accelerating their digital transformations, a lack of tech talent has been felt hard by vendors.
"However, I've been surprised the most by organisations going to tech giants and poaching their employees with an offer of a bigger bonus. Businesses have been targeting specific individuals with a great deal of knowledge surrounding certain tech and solutions.
"To combat the skills shortage, channel partners need to create and nurture their own talent, instead of stealing it. Not many of us are doing this, maybe because it's a lengthy process - but if you never start, then you'll never finish."
Click through to hear from Barracuda, Flow Transform, Performanta, Crayon, Ignition Technology and Assured Data Protection...
'I've been surprised by organisations poaching employees from tech giants': 8 partners reveal their biggest surprises of 2022
From vendors ‘losing their way’ to partner overhauls, here we list what took some channel bosses by surprise this year
Geoff Kneen, CEO of Content+Cloud
"I think the proposal that Colt Technology Services were going to acquire Lumen in EMEA surprised me.
"One of the one of the things about that, I suppose just the reflection on progression of Colt as a business to be able to get to a place where it could make that kind of acquisition.
"Now the acquisition has not gone through. It's been proposed to complete by the end of 2023.
"I think that surprised me from the point of view of I hadn't realised that Colt had got the scale where they could have absorbed that size of an acquisition."
'I've been surprised by organisations poaching employees from tech giants': 8 partners reveal their biggest surprises of 2022
From vendors ‘losing their way’ to partner overhauls, here we list what took some channel bosses by surprise this year
Melissa Mulholland, CEO, Crayon
"I started my career at Microsoft with a focus on channel. I was responsible for SMB so I carry a lot of love for the SMB ecosystem.
"Microsoft has always been partnered led. For the entirety of its business model, maybe four per cent - I believe that's the latest number - of commercial revenue is generated through partners.
"I like to tell investors all the time that we have an important element.
"Crayon is what Microsoft calls a scale partner but sometimes I think they underestimate the impact of the changes that they make and how complex it is on the partner ecosystem.
"Everything from the price changes they made in Q1 to security right now that's out there. I think they need to make sure they've made ensured points around the partner programme changes.
"Their partners represent a lot of ground so you can't underestimate the value that they provide each and every day.
"I think sometimes there's a lot of quick decisions that are made that don't necessarily consider the impact across the whole global economic ecosystem."
'I've been surprised by organisations poaching employees from tech giants': 8 partners reveal their biggest surprises of 2022
From vendors ‘losing their way’ to partner overhauls, here we list what took some channel bosses by surprise this year
Jason Howells, VP, MSP International Sales, Barracuda
"The thing that immediately springs to my mind is the amount of channel partners that now identify themselves as a managed service provider.
"When we posed this question to over 300 active channel partners at our Barracuda partner event earlier in the year in Athens, more than 90 per cent responded as an MSP.
"This demonstrates how swiftly things have moved on in the channel and how relevant MSPs now are to all sizes of organisations seeking help and choosing to outsource.
"I believe security is driving this and it's moving MSPs up the food chain in terms of the size of customer they are now working with.
"We all know many of the reasons why - lack of skilled people, increasingly sophisticated cyber-attacks etc.
"But it also highlights the need for channel partners to develop the right vendor partnerships, working with cyber security specialist vendors that have invested in providing the rights services to help MSPs to help their customers, no matter where they are on their own cyber security journey.
"It was a very telling moment, highlighting the evolution that has already happened in the channel. I used to say that the MSP space was the future, but from that point onwards I realised that it's actually the 'now'."
'I've been surprised by organisations poaching employees from tech giants': 8 partners reveal their biggest surprises of 2022
From vendors ‘losing their way’ to partner overhauls, here we list what took some channel bosses by surprise this year
Etienne Greeff, CEO, Flow Transform
"The thing that surprised me the most is the rise of value added distribution with distribution taking on professional service provision and managed services.
"Distribution has historically been thought of as the part of the value chain that carries stock, carries credit risk and deals with vendors only.
"This has changed significantly over the past few years with distribution focusing on introducing new technologies, doing service provision including managed services, professional services and even cloud services.
"The investment community has noticed that VAD's are an interesting opportunity with significant upside by broadening their offering.
"This has meant that there has been a lot of investment into VAD's and with VADs making acquisitions as they scale out their size and services.
"This means that for typical channel partners VAD's are also in some cases competitors. This is definitely a case of competition."
'I've been surprised by organisations poaching employees from tech giants': 8 partners reveal their biggest surprises of 2022
From vendors ‘losing their way’ to partner overhauls, here we list what took some channel bosses by surprise this year
Guy Golan, Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer, Performanta
"How some of the technology vendors lost their way and started selling services, something that was always in the hands of MSS and PS providers.
"We have seen vendors struggling getting their numbers especially when the market is so flooded with competition.
"As such, they turned out to the easiest thing for them and now offer services (managed and PS) for their own tech.
"This action disrupts the channel and the trust in the channel between an MSSP / Reseller - Distributor and A vendor.
"What will the outcome be? Early to judge but it doesn't look good. In a form of retaliation, the MSSP channel partners have taken a more responsible part with their clients. That makes them more client centric rather than vendor centric. It is a very welcomed surprise.
"With regards to our own business, and in relation to Microsoft, we were exceptionally impressed with MS's dedication to ensure our partnership is successful. In fact, all we see is major upside with them.
"When we acquired Identity Experts, April 2021, we thought the acquisition will give us leverage in the relationship with MS. MS's approach towards us far exceeded our expectations.
"I must say that I find their channel partner programme to be very strong for those partners that are aiming to make MS's solution work better for clients and even to those that have a hybrid ecosystem (At Performanta we are a Microsoft first organisation)."
'I've been surprised by organisations poaching employees from tech giants': 8 partners reveal their biggest surprises of 2022
From vendors ‘losing their way’ to partner overhauls, here we list what took some channel bosses by surprise this year
Peter Ledger, managing director, Ignition Technology
"The worldwide shortage of people in the IT industry is between 3m-4m, depending on what you read.
"The channel has seen a massive increase in salaries offered by the more prominent tech vendors, which has had a knock-on effect on the channel.
"The big salaries being offered by the vendors have meant that the channel has seen attrition of staff.
"In the later stages of this year, we have seen that these salaries and the over-hiring could be more sustainable with a pending slowdown—massive layoffs from some of the largest tech firms. Businesses are now looking at hiring post-revenue rather than pre."
'I've been surprised by organisations poaching employees from tech giants': 8 partners reveal their biggest surprises of 2022
From vendors ‘losing their way’ to partner overhauls, here we list what took some channel bosses by surprise this year
Simon Chappell, director and co-founder, Assured Data Protection
"My surprise of the year in 2022 is how resilient the channel in both EMEA and the US has been in getting back to normal face-to-face as the desired way of interacting.
"All our businesses have embraced hybrid working patterns, but the demands for face-to-face are highest in our sales channels.
"I love to see it, but I'm not sure I'd missed the monthly expense bills, especially as our team seem to be making up for lost time !! …"