Channel Awards: Q&A with Jamf

Jamf channel sales manager Abdul Terry tells CRN about the biggest challenge of 2023

Why do you think awards like the Channel Awards matter?

The Channel awards provide recognition to people and companies doing innovative or impactful work in the channel industry. Getting nominated for or winning the Channel awards validates a team's efforts and work in being a strategic partner to our channel partners.

What would winning this award mean to your company?

Winning this award would bring a sense of accomplishment and motivation. Jamf strives for excellence and wants to continue to be the best partner we can be. One of our company values is relentless self-improvement, and winning this award would reward the team for trying to continuously improve.

What would you say is your company's proudest achievement over the past year?

We continue to see our customers choose Jamf to achieve Trusted Access, which ensures that only trusted users on enrolled, safe devices can access company data. This dramatically increases the security of the modern workplace while streamlining work for users. Jamf now has 74,400 customers and runs on 31.8 million devices.

We also are seeing independent analyst firms recognizing Jamf for its security platform. Frost and Sullivan recently recognized Jamf as a leader in Endpoint Security in the firm's Frost Radar Endpoint Security 2023 Report.

Lastly - our Jamf team. We continue to boast a 90% employee retention rate among our 2500+ person staff, and recently were named a Best Workplace for women by Fortune Media and Great Place to Work.

What have been the biggest challenges of 2023 so far and how have you overcome them? How have your people helped with that?

No one has been immune to the challenging macroeconomic environment. Budget limitations due to economic conditions mean channel partners must provide complete solutions that consolidate capabilities and reduce costs for customers. We're seeing a lot of success with our partners in promoting Jamf's entire management and security platform for Apple.

How do you think the channel has changed over the past year and what changes do you think it still needs to make?

The core challenges centre on partners adding value during economic uncertainty, while vendors ensure their relationships enable partners to thrive. Both partners and vendors must also evolve their business models and operations to match where the market is heading. Meeting these challenges requires open communication, strategic thinking, and a spirit of mutually beneficial collaboration.

What do you see as the main opportunities for the channel in the coming year? How do you plan to capitalise on those opportunities?

Partner enablement will become more comprehensive as discounts recede - Beyond just discounts, vendors will invest more in training, skills development, and equipping partners to address talent gaps, security concerns, and economic uncertainty.

Customer success metrics will redefine partner success - With the rise of cloud, AI, automation, and security demands, metrics for partners will shift to emphasize competencies beyond sales to include implementation, services, retention, and adaptability to change.

Partners as ecosystem hubs for services and solutions - Partners will increasingly provide integrated services and solutions tailored to industry verticals and emerging technologies like hybrid work tools. This allows them to address security, talent, and capitalize on new software opportunities.

In essence, the trends point to partners taking on more strategic roles as enablers, consultants, and service providers versus just resellers. Vendors will need to invest more in partner capabilities while also evaluating partners based on broader success metrics beyond sales volumes. The partner ecosystem will consolidate solutions and services around meeting critical customer needs in areas like security, hybrid work, and industry-specific software.