Vendors give their top message to partners for 2024
Channel heads from CrowdStrike, Barracuda, NetApp and N-able share where the opportunities for their partners will lie next year
The reseller and MSP space has never been busier with acquisitions as it has this year, but where are the growth opportunities in 2024?
Just this past month the channel has seen buyout deals from FluidOne, Cognizant, Ekco, FourNet and Flotek.
But consolidation hasn't been the only thing on the minds of partners as sustainability remains at the top of the priority list, and more and more resellers continue to beef up their managed services offering.
But what seen as the big opportunities for 2024?
To find out, CRN asked four channel vendors where they want their partners to invest.
John Taylor, VP of European alliances, CrowdStrike
"Platforms will win.
"It's not about point solutions as they create too many gaps for the IT organisation to be able to get a coherent and same time story of what's going on with this network.
"Platforms save people money, create an answer and are good news for both partners and end users.
"My advice for those partners is, you need to take some bets on platforms, you need to see who the winners are in requisite markets and you need to bet on platform."
Continue reading to hear which vendor wants partners to focus on driving adoption...
Vendors give their top message to partners for 2024
Channel heads from CrowdStrike, Barracuda, NetApp and N-able share where the opportunities for their partners will lie next year
Jason Beal, vice president of worldwide partner ecosystems, Barracuda
"At the heart of customer success is the layer model. Landing new customers, driving adoption, driving expansion and then renewal and retention.
"Barracuda, like many vendors in the industry, sees the channel as the lifeblood for new customer acquisition. We want to see partners continue to invest from an outreach, demand, marketing and then new logo acquisition perspective.
"But now what is equally as important, again, in an industry of as-a-service and product-led growth, what's equally important for partners to invest more into is driving adoption.
"Do they have visibility on for instance, time to first value? Or do they have metrics and milestones where they're measuring when an end customer is getting more feature adoption or full utilisation or full adoption.
"The vendor community including Barracuda as we've invested in customer success, we want our partners to be driving that adoption. If you can land a new logo and drive adoption, quicker time to value and full feature realisation that then gives us permission to work with those happy customers to expand the estate, and keep them as healthy and happy customers for life.
"So those two areas, continue to drive that new logo acquisition because the channel that's the lifeblood of new logos, and the focus more and more on driving adoption of the technologies to realise the business value of those investments."
Up next, NetApp and N-able...
Vendors give their top message to partners for 2024
Channel heads from CrowdStrike, Barracuda, NetApp and N-able share where the opportunities for their partners will lie next year
Sonya Mathieu, senior director partners UKI, NetApp
"NetApp has traditionally been known for its software. That is our operating system and that's quite famous.
"So it's about having our partners look bigger. Our software is available now in all three hyperscalers, which is a huge advantage that we have over the competition. We now have different products to address different workloads. But again, not complicating it, it's not a bolt-on, this is the same software just with enhancements to it.
"So I think we need to get out of our comfort zones and challenge ourselves and have different conversations around AI and around these other workloads and areas where we could compete.
"It's easy to be comfortable in what we know. We've done really well in the Network-as-a-service market, but I think we need to challenge ourselves to have more conversations."
What two areas does N-able think MSPs need to focus on next year?
Vendors give their top message to partners for 2024
Channel heads from CrowdStrike, Barracuda, NetApp and N-able share where the opportunities for their partners will lie next year
David Weeks, VP of partner experience, N-able
"To me, it's not even necessarily about specific vertical markets. To me, there's two areas MSPs need to be thinking about today. One is investing in their internal processes, and the way that they're delivering their service.
"MSPs buy a lot of technology, but they struggle to harness 100 per cent of the power of that technology. And so my message is always is work with your vendors, because we have a tonne of training that is provided to help you harness that.
"The second area that I think MSPs need to invest in is where do they want to move in the market?
"What is their strategic plan and goal going forward into 2024? If that's moving up market then you needed to start planning that already.
"Staying where you are is great but how are you going to manage that scale going forward, and still continue to look back at that efficiency internally."