Emerging Vendors Need To Build Channels Earlier, Not Later
Engaging the channel later in a company's evolution may have made sense back when the channel's chief role was sales fulfillment – selling and distributing a vendor's products in markets and geographies that it couldn't otherwise reach. But the role of the channel is changing – indeed, it already has changed – from a sales and distribution focus to providing solutions around a vendor's products and, more recently, providing strategic services around those solutions.
The growth in cloud is changing the channel partner’s role, which requires technology vendors to rethink the structure of the vendor-partner relationship.
