The Biggest Threat To The Channel: Not Providing A Turn-Key Solution

By Gina Daniel-Lee, Vice President of Strategic Alliances, Velociti, Inc.

As a company that specializes in helping channel providers and their clients deploy technology solutions, including design, installation, and maintenance, the biggest threat we see to the channel is an inability to offer a truly turn-key solution. Deployment is the last-mile of a technology investment and in too many cases; its importance is underestimated with respect to budgeting, time, and resource requirements.  Too often channel partners undervalue the benefits of including professional deployment as a key component of their solutions. And these benefits are significant to the client as well as the channel provider.

Take, for example, the threats presented to a channel provider’s business due to prolonged sales cycles, delayed time to market, and inadequate financial planning, often, these threats become realities as a direct result of the channel provider not having a professional deployment offering to effectively complete an otherwise excellent technology solution.

A strong deployment partnership can significantly minimize these threats. Sales cycles can be decreased by including the presentation of a comprehensive deployment strategy early in the process. Time to market is improved by virtue of defining the implementation timelines up front. And these two critical steps allow the client to establish an adequate budget for the entire investment. In total, including a comprehensive deployment strategy as a core component of the overall investment is critical to the success path for the client and channel provider. In fact, the success of the deployment itself is often the key factor in the client achieving the return on investment the channel provider has presented.

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