
Mumbai: Major cloud vendors are heavily relying on their distribution channels for a successful implementation of their cloud strategy, a new study has revealed. According to the Global Technology Distribution Council (GTDC), vendors will be depended on their distributors to bring cloud solutions to market and offer services around cloud offerings in 2017.
The report majorly focuses on the role of the channel in in cloud business 2017.
The GTDC – whose members include Tech Data, Ingram, Avnet, Arrow, Westcon, Exclusive Networks and Scansource, surveyed over 70 channel executives and interviewed more than 20 distribution executives as part of the report.
“The emergence of cloud has transformed distribution along with the IT industry.
Increasingly, vendors are relying on the channel to bring cloud solutions to market and that won’t change in 2017. In addition, look for more services and solutions built around cloud from distributors as cloud adoption reaches critical mass”, the report said.
The role distribution will play in the cloud has often been questioned, with some in the industry warning distributors need to evolve or risk becoming irrelevant. Carl West, supply chain director at analyst GfK, explained that, while there was a period a few years ago when vendors questioned the role of distribution when it comes to cloud, they have now reviewed their position and see the benefits that distributors offer.
He said that it is much easier for a vendor to deal with a handful of distributors rather than going directly to thousands of end-users. “If you look back five years there was a lot of fear regards to the potential for cloud going direct, cutting out indirect channel,” he said.
“This was going to play out in some way short term but if you consider distribution’s part – not only client roster, their product enable, their breadth of experience, the up-gearing of distribution to sell cloud services – they are becoming a very efficient way of getting to the end user through resellers”, he added.
West explained that distributors are now acting as marketplaces when it comes to managed services, so smaller MSPs can provide services they’d otherwise be incapable of doing so, while also still providing services around logistics and finance.
The Global Technology Distribution Council (GTDC) is a worldwide industry association dedicated to defining and promoting the role of wholesale distribution in a information technology channel. The Council is comprised of the computer industry’s top wholesale distributors dedicated to serving “the channel,” a network of skilled VARs, Internet resellers and retailers focused on providing hardware, software, and services to businesses and consumers around the globe.
GTDC members drive more than USD 130 billion in annual worldwide sales of products, services and solutions through dynamic business channels.