7-9 NOVEMBER GLENEAGLES
COMMS VISION CONVENTION munications Value Chain
Cloud’ lowers the competitive advantage making it more difficult to differentiate their offerings. This is already leading to price and profit erosion. ‘The Cloud’ is thus at the heart of all discussions within the industry. It is a phenomenon that cannot be ignored and most importantly must be embraced.
The second trend that is driving business thinking and changing the way companies organise themselves is all about the customer and the way they want to buy, consume and build relationships. Technology has in its broadest sense, with the web, the Cloud, mobility and ‘apps’ leading the way, changed forever the expectation of the customer. They now feel they should be able to buy or consume a service at the touch of a button. They expect technology to be intuitive and easy to use. They also want to access their company applications, entertainment, favourite applications and web sites on any device and from any location.
Most importantly they feel empowered to comment on their likes and dislikes and
influence the quality, price and service of what they purchase. This extension of social networking into the heart of the marketing cycle is making organisations completely rethink their sales models and strategies. In particular, in a typical comms channel company, whose sales model has a ‘Hunter’ led approach, the ‘Age of the Customer’ would indicate that the ‘Farmer’ sales approach might be a more sustainable model for the future. A real challenge to today’s thinking and practice.
Building on the effect of the cloud and more importantly the changing relationship with the customer the third major trend has been termed ‘The Age of the Platform’ by Phil Simon in his book of the same title. In his book he looks at how Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google appear to have created a new business model that challenges traditional thinking and is making other major multinational organisations completely re-evaluate their go-to-market strategies.
By using new technologies and a deep understanding of how to build relationships
with today’s customers these organisations have been able grow at phenomenal rates, despite in some cases launching unsuccessful products or services that to a traditional company would have been fatal or severely damaged the company. The ‘Platform’ business model that Phil Simon describes has enabled these organisations to fly in the face of traditional product introductions, to build relationships with competitors for mutual gain as well as building partnerships with flexible extensions and get out clauses to match the business requirement of the time.
Most importantly the ‘Platform’ model is customer facing. It is based around being customer led and understanding what they need and what they might need or want in the future. It is about not doing everything yourself and building partnerships that allow you to match the customer demands. In many ways the ‘Platform’ model challenges the traditional ‘Value Chain’ in that it is more flexible and particularly more customer focused. There are some
For channel companies, winning business with certainty rests on customers having confidence that
Darren Farnden
their supplier really understands them and has the capability to provide a realistic solution. Considering Entanet’s own position in the Value Chain, we encourage channel partners to really get close to what a customer wants to achieve rather than simply try to sell what they have in their portfolio. It’s about creating long-term relationships and we’ve made changes in our engagement with partners to give them the help they need to do that. Darren Farnden, Head of Marketing, Entanet International
The interplay of new working practices
Rob Hutton
and technologies is snowballing to overturn the working world. The ‘one size fits all’ model is simply unviable in supporting the Work 3.0 generation of
businesses which need to be populated with interoperable best-in-class technologies. A shift is needed whereby vendors contribute to an ultimate solution, working alongside other vendors rather than competing. Resellers will be critical in delivering this. Rob Hutton, VP UK Sales, Mitel
who will argue however that it is a model that is more appropriate for bigger companies that want to build on their large customer bases than smaller companies that are still establishing themselves or who focus on specific market segments.
For the comms channel the ‘Platform’ model might be a way of taking back control of their business by enabling them to get closer to customers and thus define to their suppliers how their relationships should be structured to maximise the business potential of their customer base. It may change the partner program and accreditation led relationships of today. It would almost certainly reshape the internal value chains within the organisation and redefine what competitive advantage means.
There is no doubt that the ‘Value Chain’ model has been successful to date for the communications channel. However in the ‘Age of the Cloud, the Customer and the Platform’ is it relevant
in the future? Does the comms channel need to redefine the ‘Comms Value Chain’ in the light of these new influences? At Comms Vision 2012 we will explore the ‘Comms Value Chain’ and its relevance to today’s comms channel companies.
In the Open Sessions we will discuss the overall marketplace in 2012 and what all these new trends mean to the comms channel, we will address creating Competitive Advantage in this new world and also about defining and delivering excellence in a customer lead world. In the closing session we will draw together all these views as well as input from delegates to see if there is relevance today for the ‘Comms Value Chain’ and if so how it needs to evolve to support a comms company’s go to market strategy.
Comms Vision 2012 will be the most stimulating event ever for the directors of comms channel companies and I look forward to meeting you all there joining in the debate.
www.commsvision.com
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www.commsvision.com
COMMS DEALER AUGUST 2012 45
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