Channel Expo

Another week, another conference. This week I attended and presented at the UK’s major channel conference, Channel Expo, at the NEC. Good event, lots of interesting people, some great presentations from Gartner, Dell and Google. The UK channel is having as hard a time as the rest of the sector, but it is time to move away from shifting boxes into becoming a managed services provider and offering solutions to specific business needs, as well as focusing on their sales people and technicians, their talent, as the primary differentiator. This truly resonates with the people I met. I do like their willingness to build a strong community and talk ‘opportunity’ – this has to be the best remedy for getting out of the slump and preparing for better times.