Editor’s Note: RCR Wireless News teamed with the Yankee Group to conduct a series of market surveys of RCR Wireless News subscribers to gauge their thoughts on various technology issues. RCR Wireless News will publish the exclusive results from our joint project, with Yankee Group’s expert analysis. More than 2,600 readers responded to the second wave of surveys. Congrats to Cathi Spornick, director of partner solutions at Vox Mobile, who won an American Express gift certificate.
Camelot of King Arthur lore is reminiscent in the current state of affairs in the wireless indirect channels market: The setting is a kingdom of considerable abundance and vigorous growth. The knights in the realm were once happy, but the king had been silent for a long time and had ignored his knights – a similar sentiment to how indirect channel partners feel toward their wireless service provider and vendor regents. These knights anxiously await a glorious return of royal leadership from a wireless service provider king who could lead the way to their own Camelot rich with wireless-enabled applications.
However, not every thoroughfare is smoothly paved on the road to Camelot – at least not for the 261 indirect channel partner knights surveyed in our second Yankee Group-RCR Wireless News channels survey. We surveyed channel partners including VARs, agents, dealers, I.T. consultants, master agents and distributors. Ninety-two percent of them name a wireless service provider or vendor as their primary business partner.
The wireless service providers and vendors – AT&T Mobility, Verizon Wireless, Sprint Nextel Corp., Alltel Communications L.L.C., T-Mobile USA Inc., Motorola Inc. and Research In Motion Ltd. – are a long way from empowering and supporting their indirect channel partners. But there’s hope, and the solution needn’t involve magical incantations mouthed by Merlin. The solution requires a strong focus and commitment from the service providers and vendors, as well as the willingness of the indirect channel to invest in its future. Later in this article, we talk about specifics to turn this potentially tragic fairy tale into a modern story of business success.
Let’s start with the cold, hard facts: The most pressing needs of the indirect channel are least addressed by wireless service providers and vendors. Nineteen percent of all channel partners believe their service provider and vendors are effective at helping them battle their No. 1 business challenge: finding and training qualified sales staff. Similarly, 44% of channel partners believe business development is their critical business issue, but only 25% believe their service provider and vendor partners are effective at helping them address this issue (see chart 1). The service providers and vendors have ignored the indirect channel partners for so long that the partners have almost lost hope in their leadership. Frankly, these expressions of frustration from wireless channel partners are repugnant. Nowhere else in the technology sector would a service provider or vendor tolerate such abysmal scores from its indirect sales channels.
Lack of engagement
Channel partners are not engaged with their service providers and vendors, which only exacerbates underperformance through the channel. This underperformance leads to disgruntled channel partners and service providers less willing to invest in partner success. Only 46% of channel partners participate in co-op funds; 40% in vendor/service provider-sponsored seminars and workshops; and 25% in lead generation programs with their service provider and vendor partners. And even when the channel partners participate in those programs, they find the programs marginally effective.
Even the Knights of the Round Table from the Camelot legend presumably did their fair share of squabbling. Service providers, vendors and their channel partners are not without their shortcomings; therefore, all need to find some middle ground to maximize their relationship. They all, after all, have responsibilities in the wireless ecosystem – responsibilities that have long been forgotten. Let’s go over five actions that would improve relations between service providers, vendors and channel partners; increase success on the technology battlefield; and enhance business dealings in the wireless royal court:
Steps to success
Service providers must stop ignoring their indirect channels and address issues of retail channel conflict. As long as service providers treat indirect channels like scullery maids, they will get suboptimal performance from these channels. Fifty-six percent of channel partners believe SMBs will be their greatest opportunity for future growth, but service providers are happy to push SMBs to their company-owned retail channels rather than helping indirect channels with lead generation and differentiated services-based offerings.
The high-touch channel partner segment – the 35% of channel partners that transact business in person at their customers’ places of business – require differentiated solutions, channel support and marketing programs. Service providers and channel partners dually share the responsibility to create such programs. Service providers also need to create certification programs with compensation tied to proficiencies in the program. The value of this is evident from the 66% of channel partners that believe certification programs increase credibility with customers. So why wouldn’t a service provider or vendor empower its channel with these credentials – credentials that exist in almost every technology segment excluding wireless? Let’s move on because we could discuss this topic for many a fortnight.
Service providers and vendors must help develop and recruit talent for the indirect channel. How many r
