Chris Moyle
What will be the key channel plays for 2015?
We truly are seeing disruption everywhere. Customers need to focus their strategies around these new plays in order to create successful business outcomes. From a channel perspective, this is great opportunity for partners to cut through noise by providing leadership and guidance while positioning themselves as market leaders. So how can they do this? First they need to determine their customer’s needs, not just for today, but also into the future. Then they need to develop a vision and road map for how customers can get from where they are, to where they want to be. We believe the trusted advisor approach is what customers are looking for, and need, now more than ever in order to run successful, profitable organisations.
What will be the key technology for 2015?
There isn’t just one main technology to watch in 2015. Application workloads, data types and service level requirements can vary considerably from customer to customer. Consequently, there’s a range of technologies that we see as major players in the channel market right now. Technologies such as all-flash (block), scale-out file, software-defined datacentres, and converged infrastructure are all helping to transform datacentre economics, enabling unprecedented levels of consolidation while at the same time delivering linear performance at scale. In all of these cases, remember that architecture matters. Do due diligence with every customer to ensure they are getting what's expected and, that ultimately, these technologies align with the strategic business outcomes they desire.
What is your key message to the Channel?
Whether you call it Cloud or managed services, the move towards IT-as-a-Service (IaaS) is well underway. As a trusted advisor to your customers, it’s essential that you are educated fully in IaaS.
Take advantage of the comprehensive training vendors offer to partners and pass this valuable knowledge onto customers.To achieve the best results, understand what your customer is trying to achieve and map their workload requirements accordingly. For example, IaaS doesn’t always mean moving everything off-premise into a public Cloud. Instead to get the balance right, take a planned and considered approach. For example, e-mail and test/dev requirements are great candidates for the public Cloud but ERP workloads might sit better in a private Cloud (either on-premise or hosted/managed). More than likely some form of hybrid Cloud will provide the right balance when considering cost vs risk.
What is your key warning to the channel?
There is a compelling need to become the trusted advisor, with a laser focus on solutions that deliver tangible business outcomes.
Key to your company in 2015?
EMC provides partners with everything they need to become trusted advisors from training to building their brand to access to leading industry products, solutions and services. By enabling our sales force and those of our partners to engage with business and IT stakeholders, we operate with the end goal of the customer in mind. It’s essential that we understand the customers’ business and lead with the innovative insights that will ultimately allow them to disrupt their markets and move ahead of competitors.
