comptia 4th state of it channel study

Sales & Marketing Trends in Time of Business Transformation

CompTIA State of Channel Study

Copyright (c) 2014 CompTIA Properties, LLC. All Rights Reserved. | CompTIA.org

September 2014

17%

59%

24% 24%

55%

22%

Low degree Moderatedegree

High degree

2012 2014

Self Assessment Business Transformation

CompTIA MPS Trustmark Value Proposition

1. Validation of MPS expertise to customers

2. Mechanism to evaluate internal MPS

operations / follow best practices

3. Differentiator 15%

72%

13%

20%

49%

31%

15%

48%

37%

Low degree Moderatedegree

High degree

Small channel firm

Medium channel firm

Large channel firm

Current State of Transformation by Size

Source: CompTIA 4th Annual State of Channel: Base: n=350 IT channel firms

How Far Along the Path to Business Transformation?

Primary Catalysts for Channel Business Transformation

23%

23%

27%

32%

35%

36%

41%

Defensive move against obsolescence

Margins on product sales declining

Vendors pushing us to change

New financial models are more lucrative

Desire to move to a recurring revenuemodel

Customer demand for different servicesand IT delivery models

Cloud computing pushing us in newdirections


Top Challenges Experienced with Business Transformation

1. Cash flow and other financing challenges

2. Customer education

3. Balancing existing business operational needs with new business

4. Hiring skilled staff to accommodate new lines of business

5. Need for new kinds of technical training

6. Need for sales and marketing training and repositioning

7. Need to learn new financial metrics and accounting schemes

8. Lack of business transformation roadmap

Note: rank order listings are useful for summary purposes, but should NOT be interpreted quantitatively. For example, the first-ranked item is not necessarily 8 times more important than the eighth-ranked item.


29% 48%

21% 3%

Highly effective

Moderately effective

Hit or miss

Ineffective

Self-assessment of sales & marketing effectiveness of channel


MSPs are far more critical of

the channel’s sales and marketing

acumen than solution providers.

Just 6% of them deemed

channel efforts ‘highly effective’

vs. 31% of solution providers

who responded favorably. Twice as

many MSPs characterized these

operations as ‘hit or miss.’

Channel Firms Weigh in on Sales & Marketing Efforts

32%

34%

20%

15%

Enterprise (500+ staff)

Midmarket I100-499)

SMB (10-99)

Micro (Less than 10)

Typical Customer Size Last Year

More than TWICE as many MSPs sell to either company owners or non-IT line of business executives than do conventional solution providers, who are more than 3X as likely to sell to CIOs or IT staff than MSPs.


Customer Demographics Among Channel Firms

1. Routine visits/interactions with existing customers to upsell

2. Marketing/business development to identify/attract leads

3. Sales proposals presented to customers

4. Outside sales rep face-to-face visits with potential new customers

5. Use of social media to attract new customers

6. Contractual terms discussed for services, including SLAs

7. Inside sales cold-calling of qualified leads

8. Purchasing outside database/customer list

Note: rank order listings are useful for summary purposes, but should NOT be interpreted quantitatively. For example, the first-ranked item is not necessarily 8 times more important than the ninth-ranked item.


Main Sales Activities Taken by Channel Firms

Actions Taken to Sell to Non-IT LOB Executive


19%

23%

25%

32%

34%

36%

40%

Incentives for staff to further engage with businessexecs

Maintain dual approach for business and IT execsto meet both needs

Hire new sales reps with experience in verticalindustries

Focus less on HW/SW specs and more on totalsolutions

Redesign marketing collateral with more of an end-user focus

Use of social media to target non-IT executives

Sales training to enable reps to sell to non-ITexecutives

49% of solution providers plan this step vs. 28% of MSPs

Social Media Usage and Marketing Plans for Future

42% Use of social media

34% Increased use of white labeling

32% Webinars, blogs, etc.

23% Hire of marketing professionals

20% No longer leading with vendor brand or vendor certification skills to attract customers

19% None of the above

Planned Changes in Marketing Strategy

Source: CompTIA 4th Annual State of Channel: Base: n=96 IT channel firms which are using social media

Plans to Increase/Decrease Social Media Usage

35%

38%

25% 2%

Increase its usage significantly

Increase usage somewhat

Maintain same usage

NET Decrease

Impact of the Adoption of New Business Models, Such as Managed Services and Cloud Services, on Sales Structure

12%

6%

28%

27%

20%

No impact

Simplifying the complexity dramatically

Simplifying the complexity somewhat

Increasing the complexity somewhat

Increasing the complexity dramatically


Staffing Activity for Channel Firm Sales & Marketing

26%

34%

39%

28%

51%

44%

36%

48%

23%

22%

25%

24%

Added new sales reps

Hired reps outside the IT industry

Eliminated sales reps based onbusiness model change

Added new marketing reps

Major activity Minor activity No activity


Rating Various Activities as Part of Sales Model Transition

10%

12%

12%

18%

17%

18%

15%

10%

49%

46%

47%

38%

48%

45%

50%

49%

41%

42%

41%

44%

36%

38%

35%

41%

Creating incentives to drive sales to new businessareas

Performing demand generation/lead generation fornew customers

Effectively rebranding/messaging as a servicesprovider

Learning to sell to non-IT and line-of-business endcustomer buyers

Adjusting to different sales cycle durations

Realigning sales compensation models for reps

Hiring new sales staff to accommodate new lines ofbusiness

Retraining existing sales reps to engage in services-based selling vs. product/project sales

Major factor Minor factor Not a factor


About This Research

Source: CompTIA Market Research

CompTIA is a member of the Marketing Research Association and abides by its guidelines for survey best practices and research ethics. CompTIA is responsible for all content contained in this report. This study and all CompTIA research is one way in which the association re-invests resources in the IT channel. As the voice of the IT industry, CompTIA has hundreds of tools, market intelligence reports and business training programs to help IT channel organizations grow through education, certification, advocacy and philanthropy. The full report is available at no cost to CompTIA members to help them develop and hone their business plans. Visit www.comptia.org or contact [email protected] for more information.

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comptia 4th state of it channel study

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