Samantha Ciaccia
2015 ChannelChanger Award Winner
Channel Engagement Manager, Datto, Inc.
ChannelCon is one of the most anticipated events in the IT community, as well as a personal favorite of mine. It brings together solution providers, vendors and industry experts, and offers topical education and the latest published studies for an upscale event focused on what’s next in IT. This year's ChannelCon took place in Chicago, focused on an overall theme of transformation—technology is changing and evolving at a rapid pace, and in order to keep up, business owners and customers alike need to embrace this digital era by transforming their businesses over time.
CompTIA CEO Todd Thibodeaux kicked things off the with his keynote, focused on the idea that “Transformation does not happen overnight. The idea that you can get people to go from 0 to 60 in one step is a fantasy" said Thibodeaux. "Transformation is a continuum, not a final destination.” This theme trickled down through the rest of the conference. In each community meeting, attendees were challenged to put their minds in motion, to think about and discuss what's actually transforming, specific to their vertical, and different ways in which to best handle those changes. As human beings, we may have a natural inclination to resist change, but those who resist it inevitably get left behind.
I’ve been a member of the Cloud Community, among others, for a couple of years now. I was elected as a member of the Executive Council (EC) in 2015, which made my role and experience in this particular meeting a bit different than usual. Leading up to ChannelCon, I worked with nine EC peers and facilitators to shape the format of the meeting and determine the topics of conversation. There was one panel in particular called “Building a ‘Born in the Cloud’ Business” that was a huge success, raising lots of questions and comments from the audience. It’s become a popular trend to see businesses actually arrive fully born in the cloud, making their business models, service offerings and go-to-market strategies very unique—content much too good to not be highlighted.
Moderated by Ted Roller, president of Get Channeled, and featuring four well-known channel experts, this panel narrowed in on the idea that cloud solutions affect everything in our businesses and are notably different than what we have ever sold before. The conversation covered certain verticals that lend themselves to cloud offerings more than others, how to start a cloud business from scratch, and what these four panelists have learned from being born in the cloud.
On why they chose to leverage the cloud as the backbone of their business.
“It’s funny, while leveraging the cloud may have been in question or a point of debate 10 years ago, it’s become a core necessity from an access perspective. Partners and customers now expect the ability to access information from both public and private clouds, seamlessly. The challenge now is ensuring the security of that data, at rest and in transit.”
-Len DiMiceli, VP Sales & Marketing, Relyenz.
On how being cloud-centric helps differentiate their value to customers.
“What we’ve realized, and what was eye opening for us, was the need for a change management program for the customer. Behavioral change is key to cloud adoption, which directly results in the success of the business’ migration to the cloud and overall business optimization.”
-Mitch Greenwald, Founder & Coach, Cloudbakers.
“Being cloud-centric differentiates your value to the customer by being able to offer limitless expansion, a lower cost solution, and ease of implementation.”
-Dan Wensley, President, Plan27.
On ensuring their business and customers are not at risk from problems outside of their control.
“Problems outside of your control may always arise. It’s imperative that we work to mitigate this risk (and its effects) by making sure that our vendors have taken the necessary steps to secure, audit and certify their infrastructure. We, in turn, will do the same for our partners and customers so that each party can be held accountable for their link in the chain.”
-Len DiMiceli, VP Sales & Marketing, Relyenz
“Vetting partners very closely and doing diligence to ensure the appropriate SLAs and contract term clauses are clear and secure—going to the cloud doesn’t excuse you from those responsibilities.”
-Mitch Greenwald, Founder & Coach, Cloudbakers.
On the future of the Cloud and where we go from here.
“Cloud technology is growing astronomically quickly. The issue remains the security around the cloud. There are huge risks from a privacy and cybercrime perspective, which will bring into question the reliability of it. Our understanding of the risks and how we are going to overcome those gaps will be essential for continued cloud growth.”
-Rob Rae, VP Business Development, Datto, Inc.
Tips for channel partners who are moving their business to the cloud?
“It’s extremely important to be asking your vendors the right questions, specifically about where your data is being stored, encryption levels, compliance laws, etc. In essence, the key to all of this is going to be about educating the end user. You need to find a vendor who is going to be stable, and will help you through that education hurdle. The knowledge of the end user community around what the cloud is and how it works is extremely low. This is the gap that solution providers need to fill.”
-Rob Rae, VP Business Development, Datto, Inc.
Major transformations to the cloud are on the rise, and going back to the overall theme of the conference, they won't happen overnight. Ongoing education around cloud technology and security is crucial for vendors, solution providers and end users to continue growing and evolving. To that end, the Cloud Community has made significant strides to bring education to the marketplace and develop tools to help enhance end-user knowledge. One such critical initiative is the Cloud Trustmark+, a vendor neutral, business-level IT credential designed to qualify and differentiate vendors who offer cloud solutions through IT service providers. As the cloud continues to grow, the need becomes for quality education becomes constant.
Thank you to everyone involved in making ChannelCon a great success, and in particular, a huge thanks to Ted Roller, Dan Wensley, Rob Rae, Len Dimicelli and Mitch Greenwald for bringing this conversation to light.
