Monday Morning Impact – January 10

Gartner: Large Companies Moving Toward Digital Currencies

Twenty percent of large organizations will use digital currencies for payments, stored value, or collateral by 2024, according to Gartner, Inc.

“Increasing mainstream acceptance of cryptocurrencies on traditional payment platforms and the rise of central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) will push many large enterprises to incorporate digital currencies into their applications in the coming years,” said Avivah Litan, distinguished vice president analyst in the Gartner IT practice. “Digital currencies will be primarily used by these organizations for payment, a store of value and the ability to leverage high-yield investments available in decentralized finance (DeFi) applications.”

Gartner recommends that organizations first clarify specific use cases for digital currencies before evaluating appropriate IT stacks to incorporate them within the enterprise. Each primary use case comes with a host of technological, regulatory, legal, and strategic considerations for both CFOs and applications leaders to assess, including selecting appropriate service providers and the ability to monitor and react to ongoing regulatory guidance.

“We have noticed an uptick in interest in digital currency and blockchain applications among CFOs since the start of [2021],” said Alexander Bant, chief of research in the Gartner Finance practice. “While volatility of cryptocurrencies remains a concern, anticipation of clearer regulatory guidance, and the advent of CBDCs, now offers CFOs more avenues to pressure-test use cases for digital currencies.”

Gartner’s prediction is partly driven by the healthy environment of service providers and off-the-shelf solutions available to large enterprises that have identified a specific use case for digital currencies.

“Among the primary use cases for digital currencies that we have identified, there will be no need for most organizations to develop a customized blockchain application stack,” said Litan. “Many large banks, payment platforms, institutional digital asset custodians and wallet providers have already done the heavy lifting in this area, which should provide large enterprises with a minimum of friction in deploying their own digital currency applications.”

“There has always been theoretical appeal in the use of blockchain and digital currencies for CFOs as a means to lower costs, increase transaction processing speed, reach new global customers, move toward continuous accounting and auditing, and create an error-free and fraud-free environment,” said Bant. “Now, with Congressional oversight starting to develop and the potential for more central banks to join China in launching a CBDC, we can see a path where the use of digital currencies will be potentially more predictable and stable in the future.”

Gartner clients can read more in: Predicts 2022: Prepare for Blockchain-Based Digital Disruption. Nonclients can learn more in: “Digital Future of Finance.”

Channel Impact^®
Over the next 12 months, corporate executives are likely to ramp up their knowledge on risks and rewards associated with digital assets, currencies, and other blockchain applications. This development will likely drive channel partners in similar directions.

Zoom Launches Partner Demand Center

Zoom has rolled out the “Zoom Partner Demand Center,” a turnkey platform offering a variety of strategies to help partners go to market with the company’s services.

Powered by StructuredWeb, the platform is designed to provide members with a leading marketing automation platform, enabling partners to execute customized, multi-touch campaigns directly from the Demand Center. Users can also download the content and assets they need to execute campaigns through their own systems.

Capabilities include support for email campaigns, web content syndication, social media marketing, events marketing, webinar syndication, video marketing, digital ads, and banners. Campaign localization is also offered in more than 50 languages through an integration with Google Translate, allowing partners to translate email campaigns with the click of a button. Analytics and reporting capabilities are also included.

Channel Impact^®
The Zoom Partner Demand Center is intended to provide partners with the tools and resources designed to help users upskill their existing team. These resources include online marketing support, training, and access to a partner marketing concierge service.

Qumu Announces Partnership with Kollective and Unveils Revamped Partner Program

Qumu Corporation, a Minneapolis-based provider of cloud-based enterprise video technology, has announced a new partnership with Kollective, a provider of enterprise content delivery networking (ECDN) infrastructure for internal communications. The combination is expected to provide users with an infinitely scalable video communications solution.

“We are excited to integrate our ECDN platform with Qumu’s enterprise video platform to provide ubiquitous access to customers who need to easily store, analyze and manage all their internal communications,” said Wade Pfeiffer, COO of Kollective. “This need has been growing exponentially with more and more organizations embracing remote work as the status quo,”

Qumu has also updated its channel program, providing partner sales support; a partner portal that provides a way for partners to communicate with one another, submit questions to Qumu, and tap into ongoing resources; and resources for onboarding, training, and enablement.

Channel Impact^®
The combined announcement is intended to support provide secure, high-quality video at scale.