Competitive landscape

Brian Corrigan, ARN (BC): One of the things I wanted to talk about today was competitive landscape because we have resellers from different ends of the SMB spectrum here today.

Jean Marc Annonier, IDC (JM): There is a strong convergence between IT and telecommunication happening at the moment so we have Telstra and Kaz, Optus and Alphawest, Commander and Volante. The big guys in the telco world have access to a very large customer base and want to leverage that to sell more IT services, particularly into the SMB market. I originally thought Telstra was best placed but I have reworked my position because it is so big and will be going through a major business transformation during the next five years that will not allow it to focus entirely on the SMB space. All it wants is to sell more telco services by selling IT services. That is the same for Optus but my view now is that no big players are well placed in SMB because they do not have the necessary levels of customer relationship.

BC: So as SMB resellers, who here is scared of companies like Telstra, Commander and the large integrators coming down to take you on at your own game?

Phil Jones, Tardis Services (PJ): Not at all because our customers have been with us for a long time and we have spoken about how they want relationship and continuity. We have all had calls at ten at night or six in the morning so as soon as Telstra can handle that they will take our business away.

JM: What if Telstra came to you with an online backup solution with a high-speed connection to the Internet that can be backed up to its data centre. Would you resell it?

PJ: I would evaluate it like anything else and if it fitted customer requirements I would look at reselling it. The only thing we sell is service, we resell everything else so companies that have products and services suitable for the SMB market are good but I don't think they will take the trusted advisor role from us.

Mathew Dickerson, Axxis Technology (MD): I have a Telstra mobile phone reseller business and when talking to Telstra I often hold up Microsoft as an example of how a big company can get into the small business space. One of the things I love about Microsoft is that it doesn't try to compete with me and sell software to my clients. They are backing me all the way and that means a dedicated small business owner is at the coalface dealing with small business owners. Telstra sits beside me and is competing with me because when I am trying to sell a mobile phone the customer has the option to go up the road and into a Telstra shop. They prefer to deal with me because I have a closer relationship. The only winners in the SMB market will be those vendors who use a reseller model rather than trying to work out how a big business gets down into that space. There is a whole different level of motivation when you are trying to close business so you can have that overseas holiday next year or buy a house rather than a rep trying to make a bit of extra commission. A business owner is more motivated than an employee ever can be.

JM: When I have spoken to Telstra about this possible online backup service I asked how this would be sold and it is thinking about using its own sales force. I told them I didn't think it would work because you can't have somebody selling voice products and online backup solutions. They are also thinking about the channel but don't know how to do it.

Angela Logan-Bell, Ingram Micro (ALB): I think the cost base larger organisations have means they can't possibly provide the relationships required by your customers from a data centre.

BC: Never say never because the big vendors are all talking about a world of services on demand where resources can be switched on and off as required. If we eventually get to a model where everything is virtualised, what will that mean for the reseller channel?

MD: It still comes down to relationships at an individual level and, no matter where the servers sit or what services are provided, somebody still needs some type of box sitting in front of them that they work on. If that stops working they are still going to want to speak to somebody they feel they can trust. Resellers in the small business space might get to the point where we are recommending an online service provider but we are still going to be commissioning that at the desktop level and that is the power the reseller has.

PJ: The SMB decision maker still wants to ring somebody and ask whether it is a good idea regardless of what it is. I don't see that going away.

Dean Janjic, IBM (DJ): I don't think it will ever be that commoditised to sell technology into small business. PJ: The complexity of what users want is going up and the cost is going down. There's this gap that we have to make fit. We have to provide that service.

ALB: A lot of what we have talked about is relationships. There is so much information, there is so much technology and there are so many changes but who are the experts? Even if technology can be provided online and becomes virtual, it is still going to be about who has the latest information and can tell a business owner the right path to go down. That is never going away.

Pip Marlow, Microsoft (PMw): The complexity and number of offerings are changing. Delivery mechanisms may change but the role of the channel will continue and vendors will adapt models to work with resellers and recognise those efforts.

Wayne Small, Correct Solutions (WS): That is why resellers who aren't working in this 'trusted advisor' capacity need to move in that direction.