How Resellers Can Excel In Today's Service-Driven Economy

By Kelly Crothers, VP of Global Marketing, MaintenanceNet, Inc.

From cloud-based computing to Anything-as-a-Service (XaaS) and the Internet of Things (IoT), new technology trends are bringing new opportunities to the value chain. While product sales will surge, the services associated with these trends are where the most profit and potential lies for manufacturers and their channel partners. But to be successful, the channel will need to implement monumental shifts in the way they do business, and the importance of applying data analytics and automation will become critical.

The Data Management Imperative 

For the supply chain, as a service-driven business model begins to dominate, the task at hand is to find a way to better manage sales operations, which will increasingly be built on recurring service revenue and annuities. In the past, resellers sold hardware, software and services, and their sales revenue was largely generated either at the time of initial purchase or during annual contract renewals. Now, we’re moving toward a world where the value chain is leasing complex ecosystems built using various mashed-up components that are sold on a monthly subscription basis, many of which have unique service agreements and fluctuating payment structures. 

To eliminate the complexity of managing the annuity stream tied to this new way of doing business, solutions providers must have a much more sophisticated approach in place to track, analyze, and bill for the solutions they deliver. Long gone are the antiquated days of spreadsheets and even stagnant data platforms. What’s arrived is the need for systems that span the value chain, incorporate fluid and fluctuating data, and take the new services and interconnected economy into account. Without a real-time data-driven approach, some resellers will fail to keep pace, and they’ll risk missing out on tremendous annuity opportunities, especially as their more agile competitors see the light.

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