Last year CompTIA used its VAR-focused lineup of conferences and events to drive home the message that VARs need to move up the value chain to services.
This year it’s showing VARs a few routes up the chain, sharing the results of the organization’s wealth of studies and surveys to point out market segments with opportunity, such as managed security and customer sets, such as manufacturing, to help VARs focus on what to offer and who to offer it to.
Much of the focus will be on Managed Services because that’s where much of future opportunity lies, said Steven Ostrowski, CompTIA’s Corporate Public Relations Manager.
“Our surveys of what people are buying and what they intend to buy shows people are involved in managed services or they want to be,” Ostrowski said.
Some of the early findings sculpted the curriculum of CompTIA’s schedule include limiting the focus of ones offering either by solution or vertical and running through your customer list before reaching out to new clients with something as radically different as Managed Services.
The four VAR focused shows are:
CompTIA System Builder Conference 2007, Feb. 26-28 in Vancouver
CompTIA Managed Services Summit, May 1 to 3 in San Diego
BreakAway, July 31 to Aug. 1 in Las Vegas, which includes a track, “Capitalizing on Managed Services Opportunities”
SMB Summit, Oct. 29 to 31 in Bonita Springs, Fla.