Most SMB channel partners are positioned as “your one-stop solution provider.” The approach – which one might refer to as “we sell IT stuff, and you need IT stuff, and we understand it better than you do, so buy it from us” – is likely to come under pressure in 2015. More successful SMB VARs would focus on understanding how technology is used within business processes. Processes in turn can be horizontal (e.g., content management) or vertical, specific to the needs of a particular type of business (e.g., construction project management). Understanding the connection between vertical processes and IT – the stuff a VAR might sell, the (cloud) stuff a VAR might broker, and the stuff the SMB client is already using – represents a kind of expertise that will support a long-term billable relationship between “trusted advisor” VAR and client, and that this kind of relationship will become more important than the capacity to deliver IT as a horizontal solution source.
Techaisle Blog
Techaisle's recently completed survey of SMBs and Mid-market companies reveals the following Top 10 IT Priorities, IT Challenges and Business Issues that the IT and Business Decision makers are facing in 2015. For the first time in many years the top SMB business issue is Increasing Profitability. This is followed by Increasing Business Growth and Reducing Operating Costs.
For the midmarket businesses Reducing Operating Costs is the top business issue for 2015 followed by Increasing Profitability and Increasing Business Growth. Also appearing for the for the first time in 2015, Managing Uncertainty is among the top ten business issues for both small and midmarket businesses.
VDI gets a bad rap because of cost and complexity but its utility in a mobility driven market segment cannot be underestimated. Although Techaisle's most recent SMB VDI adoption survey is still in the field, as per our last survey conducted in January 2014, the US SMB VDI adoption continues to increase. Techaisle's quantitative VDI/DaaS research shows that the SMB objectives in adopting either on-premise or hosted VDI/DaaS solutions revolved around mobility, application availability from anywhere and on any device, disaster recovery, centralized management and administration of end-point devices at the same time reducing costs. SMBs are recognizing the need to adopt virtualization within their businesses, however, Techaisle survey also shows that 56 percent of SMBs consider the technology complex to understand and implement.
Dell
The year 2014 belonged to Dell with its end-to-end solution portfolio, post-privatization enthusiasm and channel momentum. In 2015 Dell will have to accelerate its market penetration with converged infrastructure, cloud client computing, security and new IT services offerings.
• Key question: Can Dell align its "breadth" capabilities with the "depth" required to position, deploy and support an increasingly-complex portfolio – and can it do so at scale?
IBM
IBM began to regain its lost glory in 2014 with rapid-fire Cloud announcements – SoftLayer, Cloudant, Bluemix, Watson analytics, Verse and Cloud Marketplace. IBM is in the best position to cement its place at the CIO table with its Cloud offerings. In 2015, IBM's biggest challenges will be to make all offerings work together instead of "ticking all boxes". Its GBS (Global Business Services) group has to announce bite-sized packaged services solutions, analytical services and performance-based pricing to disrupt the market.
