Monday Morning Impact – November 23

Gartner Identifies Six Forces That Will Impact Tech Providers Through 2025

Gartner, the Stamford, Connecticut-based technology market research firm, has outlined six major trends that will impact technology and service providers (TSPs) through 2025.

“Forces outside of a TSP’s control demand a response – adapt to thrive or struggle to survive,” said Rajesh Kandaswamy, research vice president at Gartner. “Impacts from six forces are already being felt by providers today, but over the next five years Gartner expects these forces to accelerate trends and pose problems that will demand providers create new models, products and relationships to survive and ultimately succeed.”

Those forces include disruption from geopolitics and world events amid increasing global trade tensions global markets. As providers seek to serve global customers and drive geographic expansion, both global trade tensions and the erosion of U.S.-China relations become significant influences in terms of product strategies, customer acquisition, business performance management, and corporate development. TSPs expecting to approach global markets in 2025 as they do in 2020 will be displaced by competition that incorporates these new realities into their business and operating models, according to Gartner. The firm also believes that although COVID-19 has made remote work become the standard across many organizations, loneliness, collaboration and communication obstacles will be the top workplace struggle for 50% of remote workers.

The second force identified by Gartner focuses on shifts in customer expectations driven by transformed organizations and technology buyers within them. Business-driven and line of business (LOB)-resident technology buyers will drive more purchases, hastening moves to cloud products and platforms, investing more in automation and online interactions in order to optimize business processes and compete more effectively.

Disruption from emerging technologies and trends was identified as the third force. Emerging technologies enable TSPs to enter new markets, strengthen their products and services, ward off competition, and become more efficient, but the right levels of investments in the right emerging technologies at the right time are crucial for creating and capturing the most value from them.

Changing Industry Dynamics was named as the fourth force.  Over the next five years, changing industry dynamics are expected to force technology providers to adjust their strategies, routes to market, and their willingness to simultaneously collaborate and compete with other providers.

The fifth force of change in the list involves changing industry dynamics and rapid development cycles thatbmake the dedicated pursuit of competitive intelligence an absolute must for technology providers. TSPs must be particularly mindful of challenges from new entrants to the market. In some cases, providers in adjacent markets may move into new markets as a way of growing revenue and mind share.

Finally, technological advancements, availability of capital and shorter development cycles are expected to provide opportunities for innovative vendors leveraging disruptive business models. Gartner predicts that by 2025, the fastest growing major tech providers will generate 50% of revenue from generative or platform business models leveraging cloud computing.

More information can be found in “Tech Providers 2025: Prepare to Survive and Thrive with the External Forces That Will Impact Your Business.”

Channel Impact^®
Partners will need to continually revisit purchasing models, ease of doing business, customer experience, generational demands and offerings, and similar factors in order to remain competitive.

Gigamon Announces Distribution Agreement with Ingram Micro

Gigamon, a Santa Clara, California-based hybrid cloud analytics vendor, has announced a new distribution agreement with Ingram Micro, Inc.

“The value of our channel-first approach lies in our relationships with industry leaders and we are proud to add Ingram Micro to the Gigamon ecosystem,” said Larissa Crandall, Vice President of Worldwide Channels and Alliances at Gigamon. “Our distribution agreement enables us to deliver innovative cloud solutions to a broader base of enterprise, managed security service provider (MSSP), state and local government and education (SLED) as well as Service Provider customers, as they execute on their critical DX initiatives.”

Over the last seven months, organizations have seen the reduction of enterprise level digital transformation (DX) timelines condense from years down to months. The migration of workloads and data to the cloud play a vital role in the success of these DX initiatives, and ultimately the survival of many organizations. The Gigamon ecosystem solution portfolio is expected to help Ingram Micro-aligned channel partners to more successfully navigate condensed digital transformation timelines.

“Next generation cloud solutions are crucial to the success of our channel partners and their customers,” added Donald Scott, Head of Vendor Management for Ingram Micro’s Emerging Business Group. “We are proud to team with Gigamon and play an increasingly important role in their channel-first growth and go-to-market ecosystem.”

Channel Impact^®
Time to market is especially important in the current business environment, and this alliance is expected to help channel partners and their customers move forward more quickly.

Aryaka Announces Agreement with Synnex Corporation to Deliver Managed WAN as-a-Service

Aryaka, a San Mateo, California-based SD-WAN provider, has rolled out a new distribution agreement with Synnex.

Aryaka SmartServices, a key focal point of the agreement, offers connectivity, application acceleration, security, cloud networking and insights, leveraging global orchestration and provisioning. The offering provides organizations with the underlying network that facilitates cloud adoption and enables enterprises to connect to multiple clouds.

Aryaka also provides a managed service.

“Aryaka offers the flexibility and simplicity that enterprises and global organizations need in today’s fast-changing world,” said Reyna Thompson, Senior Vice President, Product Management, North America at Synnex Corporation. “Our position in the channel and agreement with Aryaka creates new opportunities for global enterprises seeking to seamlessly transform their networks.”

Channel Impact^®
Enterprises that previously planned for a measured approach towards their digital transformation initiatives have now been forced to fast-track those projects. These cloud services and applications require a fully optimized network that this alliance promises to provide.