Maryanne Demery (Seccom Global); Christopher Demery (Seccom Global) and Michael Demery (Seccom Global)
Last week, Treasurer Josh Frydenberg announced Australia was officially in a recession as the 2020 economy sunk by 7 per cent.
As the coronavirus pandemic continues to wreak havoc on both Australia’s and the global economy, the IT industry has naturally taken a major dip.
Yet ironically, for Seccom Global general manager Maryanne Demery, the economic turmoil could offer some life buoys for the channel as customers clamber to cut excess revenue and cash flow.
“Vendors and service providers are aware of a decline in customer spending – and are trying to remain as competitive as possible to retain market share. This is great news for customers – they can demand more value for money than ever before,” she told ARN.
According to Demery, cost-saving initiatives, alongside security, will continue to take priority for the majority of Australia enterprises and small-to medium sized businesses.
Echoing the general sentiment among many partners, Demery believes many “non-essential” IT services will experience delays, including updates or refreshes of infrastructure or even new technology roll-outs.
“Key customer priorities will centre around security and cost-saving initiatives, such as SD-WAN, as well as simplifying and consolidating their technology solution,” she explained. “Cloud migration will also be more in focus than ever before.”
Founded in 2003, the managed service provider has a large roster of tech giant partnerships, ranging from Dell, Microsoft, Cisco, to a number of security vendors, including Fortinet, Check Point and Sophos.
Although largely sticking to the same strategy despite the pandemic, Dermey said the company had made a number of internal changes to boost its customer experience.
In addition, it will also refocus its vendor partnerships, “working with those we deem will bring the most value or positive outcomes to our customers,” she explained.
On top of this, the company has also put a structured, dedicated program in place for research and development.
A major priority of course will be security given Seccom’s offshore Security Operations Centre, which provides 24/7 support from India.
“An increase in government spending has already been announced of course,” Demery said, referring to Scott Morrison’s recently announced $1.67 billion cyber strategy.
“But,” she added, “we also believe there will be an increase in spending on outsourcing. As teams get smaller and security becomes more complex, this makes more sense for business.”
The pandemic-led move to home working across Australia has also sparked a need for many customers to overhaul their security networks, Demery stated, alongside a ride in user education.
“It also goes without saying that security tech providers such as Seccom need to have a good grasp on the threat landscape and who is across latest tech and security. You cannot be security partner of value without these,” she said.
In terms of what customers are truly looking for now in their service provider partners, she added: “We believe customers will be looking for partners that can add value that goes beyond the technology or just ‘selling to them’. They want outcomes for their business challenges and need a partner who understands and can deliver those and support the business moving forward.
“A successful tech provider will be able to combine the technology and services - and needs to be able to integrate multiple platforms and technologies seamlessly to provide cost effective business outcomes.”
ARN Advance is a centralised editorial resource designed to help partners access forward-looking content as the Australian market attempts to reposition for growth.
