Denise Bryant
Career so far: I joined Magirus in 2005 as UK Storage and Services director before becoming UK managing director in 2009. Before that I founded Integritis, an email archiving and compliance consultancy, where I built up the consultancy to become the UK market leader prior to selling it to Magirus.
If you could be anyone else for a week, who would you be and what would you do? I would love to be a Michelin restaurant inspector. Mind you, I wouldn't be able to leave any of the food or wine, so a week would be quite enough for my waistline.
What would you have as your last meal? Anything served by Raymond Blanc - my hero.
What is the best corporate jolly you have ever been on/taken partners on? Taking our partners to the UK Music Hall of Fame Awards was a key night for me. Sitting just feet away both Prince and Axl Rose was awesome. Needless to say our partners loved it as well.
It's a pity that this was the last ceremony as Channel 4 axed it after that - hope it wasn't something we did!
Do you see the cloud as a threat or an opportunity? The cloud is a massive opportunity for the channel. Of course, there will be changes to the channel model as the cloud proposition matures, but I believe astute partners who are re-engineering their businesses now for the cloud will succeed and profit handsomely.
Have any of your predictions come true this year? In 2008 Magirus presented the cloud to our partners at one of our partner events. At that time the phrase ‘cloud' did not exist, so we called it ‘appropriate application delivery'. We said it would be big by 2010, and we were right.
What do you see as the channel's biggest challenge in 2011? Sustainably moving the channel's finances from product-based sales models to cloud annuity models will prove challenging. Another topic I hear constantly being debated is how to compensate sales teams for cloud revenue streams rather than single, big-ticket sales.
What is the best part of your day? The morning - I am very much a morning person and always annoy my husband by being so cheerful, even on Mondays.