Channel Post speaks with Chris Wiese, Regional Channel Manager at Credence Security on the challenges faced by channel partners in today’s hyper-competitive marketplace and how these can be countered.
What is your career history to date and key career achievements?
I have been working in the IT industry for over 10 years, and until very recently, worked for a Forbes 500 company. One valuable achievement thus far has been learning to adapt to ever changing environments, situations and expectations, particularly in the IT industry, which is so dynamic! I have had achievements of 80% YoY growths, and received awards for Action, Customer Drive and Innovation but the part that I take most pride and joy in, is enabling channel partners to be more relevant in the market, and helping them bring true value to their customers.
What are your roles and responsibilities in the company as a channel influencer?
I am the Regional Channel Manager for Credence Security where I specialize and focus on working with a number of resellers and service providers to increase the value they offer to end customers. This is achieved by enabling them to understand and believe in the products that they will be promoting to their customers. It is of vital importance to build the necessary strategic relationship, in order for the channel partner to prioritize your technologies as part of their focus stacks.
What qualities should a channel influencer possess to lead the channel?
For a Channel Manager, I believe one of the qualities that is key to success is having strong interpersonal skills, being extremely enthusiastic and fiercely committed to your partners. This is achieved by being kind and passionate but at the same time, firm when necessary.
A superior Channel Leader/Influencer should be able to articulate to the partner, with transparency, the real business value – what processes need changing/improvement, opportunities to focus on, risks that may be involved as well as the lucrative transformation that resides in the future.
What is your advice on finding success in the channel?
One of the best ways to find success in the channel is to take a broad approach and gather as many interested channel partners that are willing to represent your brand / company’s products and services and willing to walk the journey with you in partnership. This will not only allow for you to scale accordingly, but will allow for you to quickly determine and differentiate which partners really will become strategic to your business in the long term.
How would you assess the current state of channel?
It is difficult for me to address and assess the channel in general as the assessment would vary depending on the market and vertical that we are talking about. However, in Cyber Security, which is where I am focused, there has been a tremendous turnaround over the last couple of years as IT Channel Partners have shifted their focus from more Infrastructure and Cloud Centric solutions to Cyber Security and Risk and Compliance solutions. Also, although the market is becoming saturated with Channel Partners that provide these technologies and services, it really is the niche partners and specialists that dominate and have the most success.
What is the biggest challenge facing the IT channel in the region?
The combination of today’s hyper-competitive marketplace and frequent changes in consumer demand, make this a challenging industry to work in.
With the ever-changing threat landscape within the region, a lot of vendors are coming into the market. The challenge for channel partners is twofold – for one, they struggle to keep up with technical expertise required to fulfill customer demands and secondly, the increase in competition results in decrease in margins and profitability.
If you could improve one thing about the channel business what would it be?
In my opinion, there are too many generalists in the Cyber Security Channel game. Cyber Security requires an in-depth knowledge, and specialists and I would hope to see partners focus on cyber security and build the skills and specialization needed to deliver best-in-class security solutions to end customers.
How can partners work effectively to generate growth in the channel?
Optimum utilization of resources is imperative to any company’s success and therefore, sales teams need to have a laser like focus to generate the relevant amount of pipeline to more than cover the expected growth revenue.
Therefore, an opportunistic go-to-market strategy should be followed, whether it be, meeting with customers, cold-calling customers, marketing or PR.
