This article was originally published on CRN, IT Best of Bread by Mark Haranas
INTRODUCTION:
Solution providers need to revamp their sales strategies and methodologies when they sell to the new, next-generation IT department that’s changing its purchasing approach due to the advancement in technologies such as software-defined networking.
One long-time executive who may hold the key is Avi Networks’ new CEO, Amit Pandey. Pandey understands how IT departments are buying in today's market, having previously served as CEO of such hot startups as Zenprise, which was purchased by Citrix; and Terracotta, now part of Software AG, as well as a variety of executive positions during an eight-year stint at NetApp.
Pandey says, "CIOs and other technology leaders in corporate IT organizations are rethinking the way they approach IT solutions and purchases."
Here are his five tips for channel partners in meeting the purchasing needs of the “new” IT department:
- Know That Enterprises Will Slow Down Investing In Traditional Technologies
For data center tools, CIOs are already compelled to shift IT spending from budget-guzzling CapEx choices to consumption-based OpEx models. It allows them to really optimize spending on projects and right-size their choices without overprovisioning. The need for application speed and improved responsiveness to stakeholders is slowing down investment in traditional technologies.
- Choose Software-Driven Technologies That Drive Web-Scale Capabilities
Enterprises are increasingly seeking hardware-agnostic approaches for their data centers. Historically, this approach has been confined to large cloud companies (think Google, Amazon and Facebook). But with the performance characteristics available in commodity x86 servers, the rise of the DevOps practices in enterprises and software-based application services, the web-scale IT architectures of the cloud giants are available to most enterprises. Many application services that were confined to specialized hardware appliances are now available in elastic and scalable software-driven technologies that help avoid the problem of overspending and overprovisioning.
- Know That Application Owners Will Have Greater Influence On IT Purchasing
Partners must understand the app-centric mindset enterprises are adopting. With applications having become the lifeblood of enterprises, IT leaders are under pressure to satisfy continuous integration and delivery requirements for apps as they decide on the tools, techniques and skills they'll need.
Meanwhile, application owners want IT to empower them with self-service capabilities that allow them to build in services such as security, load balancing and auto scaling into applications. Sizable IT investment and CIO mindshare will be geared toward developer-friendly, software-driven choices, and consumption-based, use-as-you-go platforms and services.
- Help Enterprises Get Public Cloud-Like Agility And Scale In Data Center
Things like low-cost computing infrastructure, seamless scaling of applications and easy integration into development practices have been mostly confined to public cloud services, such as AWS. But most enterprises won't be able to run their computing exclusively in the cloud; they’ll use hybrid environments across private data centers and public clouds.
Channel partners should help IT choose capabilities that enable them to achieve cloud-like capabilities in-house. The maturing of such technologies as OpenStack, micro-services and software-defined networking will lead to a new ecosystem of technologies. Channel partners should expand their offerings to include products that enable automation, self-service and analytics and that help drive agility in traditional data centers.
- Drive Technologies And Services That Ease Application Migration
Data centers and clouds have become much more fluid as enterprises migrate their applications from one environment to another, adopt DevOps practices for application delivery and consolidate businesses as part of M&A. IT executives are seeking technologies that are infrastructure-agnostic and operate consistently in different environments; it helps them eliminate the need to invest in diverse skillsets and proprietary hardware-dependent solutions that don't apply in multiple environments.
Helping enterprises with application migration and continuous delivery efforts can improve services opportunities for channel partners.
If you are interested in becoming a channel partner for Avi Networks please contact us.
