Surprising Security Shortcomings After nearly a decade of threat warnings, evolving threats and billions of dollars in technology investments, you’d think that businesses have at least a baseline of IT security protections. Recent reports reveal some surprising security shortcomings in the business community.
What Do Your Vendors Channel Chiefs have Planned For You Next Year? (
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New portals? Better training materials? Deal registration? Lead management? Channel chiefs have an array of options to choose from when deciding where to focus their resources for the year ahead. Will they choose the path of least resistance, and what will it mean to you?
As the technology industry sits at the precipice of an economic downturn, channel chiefs at every vendor are likely to feel the pressure to deliver more sales.
But the initiatives they choose to focus on for their 2009 channel programs will make the difference on whether they succeed or fail in their efforts to deliver top line growth, according to a new survey of channel chiefs by partnership relationship management vendor Blueroads.
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"Certain channel chiefs are focused on cutting costs. They default to automation," said Charles Watson, senior vice president of marketing and sales for Blueroads. "You don't have to go to your CEO to get permission to build a chatroom. But it doesn't result in revenue growth either."
Blueroads divides channel executive activities into what it calls low risk/automation type activities termed "efficiency focus" or higher risk/accountability type activities termed "effectiveness focused."
The Blueroads-commissioned survey conducted by Sirius Decisions demonstrates that activities such as lead management and deal registration – which fall into the effectiveness focus category -- are the ones that boost the top line for sales through the channel, while efficiency focused activities are easier to do and tend to cut costs.
Here's what else the survey revealed, and what partners should hope to expect from channel executives in 2009.
Four out of the top five planned technology investments channel executives are planning for 2009 are focused in infrastructure, administration and operations, according to the survey results. They include the following:
• Training/learning management systems
• Partner communications and blogging
• Partner content portals
• MDF/Co-op management
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Top 10 Most Profitable Vendor Certifications
Solution providers that invest in vendor technical certifications are more profitable, sell more complex systems and have better relationships with their customers, according to the new Channel Insider/Amazon Consulting certification study. But not all vendor certifications have the same ROI. The following vendors have the best certifications for return on their partners’ investment. View Slideshow
The IT industry is in the midst of a mass metamorphosis. Lines are blurring between networking technologies, storage, servers, software and telephony. Vendors that represent the tried and true establishment in one discipline are now making hard-right turns into new, largely unfamiliar and often competitive markets. Read on to see just a few of the major convergence plays of the last year. View Slideshow
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