Sage has discoveredthat cloud computing and cyber security skills are the most demanded from new talent, with a sizeable portion also looking for evidence of coding skills.
There were clear signs that partners have been investing in skills, with many upskilling the workforce with a focus on technical and ecommerce areas.
Sage found that when predicting areas of investment for their customers over the coming months, almost half believe customers will look to grow their datacentre management revenue, while 40 per cent have a sharp focus on generating revenues from data analytics and AI software enablement.
Almost one-third of the 1,000 resellers quizzed also felt that users would be looking for help with efficiency, intelligence and automation of their business processes or operations.
Sage also discovered that skilled staff were not only sought to help the channel support customers, but there was also pressure to find talented staff that could help the partners themselves run their businesses.
Sage president Aziz Benmalek said companies were being asked to provide expertise in the most complex technological areas – from protection against the latest cyber threats to the enablement of AI and ML.
“This requires the channel workforce to shift – at Sage we are prioritising providing our channel partners with the tools and technology tools needed to thrive”, he added.
As well as using its partner conference as a forum to share research, Sage also announced a number of high-profile financial partnerships to underline the strength of its offerings.
The firm revealed it has formed partnerships with Lloyds Bank, Satago and Automatic Data Processing.
Benmalek said that the relationships would benefit partners. “The partnerships we have announced … offer our resellers the opportunity to put enterprise-grade solutions into the hands of SMB customers”, he said. “What the past two years have taught us is that there is no turning back on digitisation.”
