Last week, the OnSIP Channel team attended Channel Partners Evolution in Washington D.C. to meet with Agents, Partners, and other providers in the technology services industry.
Channel Partners Evolution, formally Cloud Partners, welcomed Agents, VARS, MSPs, Systems Integrators, and Consultants to meet with Suppliers, network with peers, and learn more about the telecom, cloud, and the IT industries. With other 150 exhibitors and 2,700 attendees, the show was filled with reps from across the country. Sponsors of the event included AT&T, Rackspace, Verizon, Google Fiber, and Samsung.
The focus of the show was on the abundance of emerging channel opportunities: "A decade ago, most businesses needed a few phone lines, a standalone office suite and some accounting software. Done. Today, every business is a digital business." [Source]
Helene Kidary, OnSIP VP Channel Sales, and Chuck Dunne, OnSIP Channel Support Manager, attended the show to meet with Agents and Partners, including Gil Puentes, President of Bridge Communications, and Kara Lee, Vice President Customer Success of Gorilla Corporation.
On Monday, Andrew Pryfogle, SVP Cloud Transformation of Intelisys, hosted a keynote session on the landscape of the industry today. He discussed the 'hot topics' that were buzz-worthy at the event, including data storage, SD-WAN, UC / CCaaS (Contact Center as a Service), security, IoT, and VARS.
On the topic of VARS, our VP Channel Sales, Helene Kidary, comments:
"Cloud is here. And it's not whether you should do it, it's do it so you can weather. VARS are going to need to move to a recurring revenue model for sustainability, and there is one of two ways this can happen. They can spend the time and resources retooling their model, or they can form a partnership with a cloud provider. That's where we come in."
"I haven't seen Kevin since 2001, when he worked for Global Crossing with other close friends of mine. He just smiled and said, 'I am back in the company of 'family'." - Helene
We had a blast at Channel Partners Evolution, and we are looking forward to the next Channel Partners conference in Las Vegas in April 2017!