Biggish Blue does not have nearly as many direct clients and leans heavily on its channel these days, according to CEO Arvind Krishna.
Krishna told the gathered throngs at the Channel Company’s 2022 Xchange Best of Breed (BoB) conference that the number of clients IBM serves directly has fallen from around 5,000 to 400 in two years.
IBM is growing above the four percent standard market growth rate (with Q1 and Q2 2022 revenues growing eight and nine percent, respectively), with the bulk coming from “the long tail”.
“I want to increase the number of clients, also, not just wallet share”, Krishna said. “That means that we need your help. We are not going to go there directly at all.”
Krishan claimed that labour inflation, skills shortages and changing demographics (the US population is no longer increasing) spells opportunity for IBM and its partners.
Technology needs to give everyone “10-20 percent additional productivity”.
During his talk, Krishna encouraged partners to explore more opportunities in IBM’s artificial intelligence operations (AIOps) offerings, including Turbonomic, Watson AIOps and Instana.
Customers will continue to spend on automation tools, he said.
