XChange March 2020: From M&A Readiness To The Power Of Team
CRN parent The Channel Company’s annual March conference covered a variety of hot topics, including M&A readiness, security, digital transformation and the power of teamwork.
The Channel Company held its annual XChange March conference in San Antonio, Texas, bringing together the IT channel’s premiere solution providers and technology suppliers.
This year’s event covered a variety of hot topics, including M&A readiness, security, digital transformation, to the power of teamwork.
M&A Readiness
“Revenue readiness is really all around making sure that all of your revenue can be counted on on a monthly basis,” said Linda Rose, technology M&A advisor and CEO of RoseBiz, Inc. “So, many of the MSPs here are now moving to selling cloud solutions so they have this monthly subscription revenue.”
After spending 25 years as a Microsoft Dynamics Channel Partner, Rose went on to build and then sell four companies, one of which she sold for 100 percent cash and walked out the door 45 days later.
Today, as CEO of RoseBiz, Inc., Rose helps channel partners understand how to maximize their company’s value.
Protect Your House First
Drew Sanford, director of sales engineering at ConnectWise, told CRN, MSPs are always focused on the security of their customers but they need to be aware of possible attacks on their own internal systems as well.
“We’re providing [partners] tools that give them visibility with our SOC teams that 24/7 can watch for problems, can help them understand what’s going on and then help them correct those problems so that their able to take the steps before the bad actors are able to get into their network,” said Sanford.
The Future Of IT Infrastructure
With digital transformation reshaping the market, customers need an end-to-end platform that meets the needs of their core data center but extends beyond that to a smaller form-factor system, like Scale Computing’s HE150, Scott Mann, director of North American Channel at Scale Computing, told CRN.
“With HE150 we can now bring a highly redundant, highly available three-note system in place of where a single server would typically lie at the edge. And now in the digital transformation era, we’re starting to see a need for more mission critical type applications at these edge sites so redundancy is going to be paramount,” added Mann.
The Power Of ‘Team-ness’
Kevin Eastman, an NBA championship coach, keynote speaker and author, spoke at this year’s event, sharing his experiences as a coach to help define and build championship teams, from sports teams to diverse corporate groups.
“In leadership or in coaching there are those who are humble and those who are about to be humbled. Our sport, basketball, as soon as you think you know everything about it and you’re the best team in the NBA, you get beat by someone who is not very good,” said Eastman.
Which is why it’s all about “the fit, who we allow in, and for us the foundation for that is what we call the formula for great teams; value (V), plus people (P), plus culture (C), equals a chance to be special.”
Head over to CRNtv for more coverage of XChange March 2020.