InsideIngramMicroBlog
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Is Payment Security A Commodity Now?
4/9/2018
The PCI Security Standards Council’s announcement of plans to strategically drive its QIR (Qualified Integrators and Resellers) program deeper into the SMB retail market is by most counts a positive thing for the industry. For the greater good of data security, it’s hard to muster a qualm about moves like these. It’s a little easier to be annoyed by these changes if you’ve been going out of your way to differentiate your business via a payment security consultancy.
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VARs & MSPs: Just Say ‘No’ To Bad Customers
4/5/2018
When James Laszko founded Mythos Technology in 2010 he likely didn’t expect he’d be able to afford to fire the lowest performing 20 percent of his customers in 2018. But that’s exactly what he has set out to do this year. You can read more about his customer rightsizing initiative in the May 2018 issue of Channel Executive magazine. In the meantime, there is another side to the Mythos story: how to find the customers who are the right fit so they won’t end up on the chopping block a few years down the road.
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Is Apple Ready For The Channel?
2/15/2018
Seven historically valid reasons for VARs and MSPs to ignore Apple, and seven counterpoints on why that might be a mistake today.
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Why A POS Solutions Provider Is Building A $10 Million Office
2/8/2018
Why is a scrappy, bootstrapped IT services company splurging on zip lines and basketball courts for its new 34,000 sqaure foot office building? After all, BNG Holdings didn’t earn a 133 percent three-year growth rate and a spot on the Inc. 5000 list by spending frivolously. Brady Nash and the co-founders of BNG Holdings started dreaming of building a Google-like work environment in Fargo, ND while they were still 18 and 19-year-old college kids selling telecom and cable services for a multi-level marketing company. Fast forward a little more than 10 years later, and the technology company sees real estate as just one more way BNG is diversifying its portfolio.
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Inside The ConnectWise/HTG Acquisition
1/5/2018
The pundits and prognosticators, myself included, have been predicting robust channel M&A activity in 2018. That activity got off to an exciting and immediate start with acquisition of HTG Peer Groups by ConnectWise, announced Jan. 5.
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VAR & MSP SaaS Adoption Trends
11/29/2017
SaaSMAX and CompTIA recently teamed up on a webinar to share findings from CompTIA’s state of the SaaS channel report. Carolyn April, Senior Director of Industry Analysis at CompTIA, and Clinton Gatewood, VP of Partner and Reseller Development at SaaSMAX, presented data that any VAR or MSP either currently selling, or considering selling, SaaS products should pay attention to.
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Rising Rates Of Fatal IT Myopia In The Channel
10/19/2017
VARs and MSPs represent the channel’s eyes on the ground. There’s a weighty responsibility there that makes nearsightedness a very dangerous thing for the channel. Our VARs and MSPs need clarity of their customers’ vision, and the rest of the channel needs to stand ready to help that vision become the customer’s reality.
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A Startup Mentality For A 20+ Year Old Solutions Provider?
7/31/2017
Darek Hahn, president and CEO of Dynamic Strategies Inc. (DSI), details the challenges of his company's shift in customer focus, sales strategy, and corporate culture.
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Inside A 50+ Employee Solutions Provider’s Employee Review Process
7/31/2017
Russ Levanway, CEO of California-based MSP TekTegrity, recently let me pick his brain about how and why the company acquired four MSPs in the five-year period between 2010 to 2015. Like many solutions providers looking for ways to grow, TekTegrity used these acquisitions to expand its regional footprint and establish itself in new verticals. In the process, Levanway had to integrate differing cultures and a rapidly expanding headcount. The company developed a regimented onboarding process for the companies it was acquiring, which included weekly one-on-one check-ins for six months with each new employee.
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An Introduction To VARinsights
6/28/2017
VARs are feeling the pinch. Hardware margins are a sliver of what they used to be. The as-a-Service, cloud, and subscription-based business models that are falling into favor among customers pose a tough transition for your business. Meanwhile, competition is mounting from every angle—startups, ISOs, the Internet, and a bevy of other service providers are all chipping away at your base.