A survey of 1,150 IT channel partners in 12 countries conducted by Accenture finds the channel is facing demand for more digital business transformation initiatives.
Accenture high tech global industry lead David Sovie said the IT channel overall had reached an inflexion point where many of the assumptions made about what motivates channel partners today are invalid, and innovation is now a much more significant driver.
The Accenture survey finds customers want partners to develop more solutions on top of platforms provided by vendors (48 percent), support digital transformations (46 per cent) and support smaller customers in different geographies (43 percent).
Half of the respondents said their primary business objective is to expand their business by bringing more consistent innovation to their products and services.
Nearly two thirds said they only want to do business with providers that prioritise investments to accelerate innovations across their products, services, industries and experiences. More than 85 percent noted they could grow their business 20 to 80 per cent if vendors focused on some or all of the following: innovation, performance optimisation, marketing and demand generation.
The ability to do new things is the top criterion for choosing a particular vendor, followed by brand reputation and technology compatibility, the survey also finds.
That shift reflects a desire on end customers to employ a broader range of emerging technologies to drive transitions within their organisation faster, Sovie said.
Nearly three-quarters of respondents said the customer expects their business objectives to be deeply understood and that partners should bring value to their solution.
IT vendors are pressuring channel partners to drive for new stuff.
Providers are not only requesting that more solutions be built on top of their platforms or products (48 percent). They are asking channel partners to support new products and platforms faster (46 percent).
As part of their efforts to meet those customer requirements, channel partners are now more dependent on cloud service providers than they were just three years ago, Sovie said.
The Accenture survey finds Microsoft, Google and Amazon Web Services (AWS) account for most revenue a partner generates. That’s a significant shift from three years ago when IT vendors with broad on-premises IT portfolios dominated, Solvie said.
