I just read this article about analytics for the channel. It makes sense. I like his opening line: “Are my people spending their time on activities that drive sales?” That is key.

But then the article goes sideways, because, for the most part, channel partners don’t do demand generation. Service providers complain to me because they have to do lead gen FOR the partners.

The author works for a marketing automation company. Everyone thinks automation means magic. It still requires the same ingredients: permission, great content, relevance and attention. Hammering more irrelevant content at your partners isn’t going to help.

In fact, the biggest issue from providers is getting any Attention from the actual partners. As it turns out, signing up VADs (like Jenne or Tech Data) and large Master Agencies isn’t the end all be all. It takes a lot of effort, time and money to get to the partners on the other side of that contract to actually get the sales coming in.

It is extremely hard for the smaller or new providers because they have no brand and no demand. In addition, in many cases no idea what impact marketing would have on their business. Automating noise without a clear, concise, relevant message to the proper audience is throwing money away (and annoying people).

Tags: analytics, channel partners, marketing
Related tags: partners, marketing, channel, providers, because

Follow me:

Twitter Profile

Related Entries

Verizon Invites the Channel Once More – Mar 20, 2015

Info You Need That I Didn’t Blog About – Aug 14, 2013

ITEXPO in Austin Will Be Hot – Aug 04, 2011

TrackBacks
| Comments | Tag with del.icio.us | On Rad’s Radar? Home | Permalink: The Channel Marketing Dilemma

Copyright On Rad’s Radar?

Sponsored by Apex Technology Services, a leading IT Services company

I just read this article about analytics for the channel. It makes sense. I like his opening line: “Are my people spending their time on activities that drive sales?” That is key.

But then the article goes sideways, because, for the most part, channel partners don’t do demand generation. Service providers complain to me because they have to do lead gen FOR the partners.

The author works for a marketing automation company. Everyone thinks automation means magic. It still requires the same ingredients: permission, great content, relevance and attention. Hammering more irrelevant content at your partners isn’t going to help.

In fact, the biggest issue from providers is getting any Attention from the actual partners. As it turns out, signing up VADs (like Jenne or Tech Data) and large Master Agencies isn’t the end all be all. It takes a lot of effort, time and money to get to the partners on the other side of that contract to actually get the sales coming in.

It is extremely hard for the smaller or new providers because they have no brand and no demand. In addition, in many cases no idea what impact marketing would have on their business. Automating noise without a clear, concise, relevant message to the proper audience is throwing money away (and annoying people).

Tags: analytics, channel partners, marketing
Related tags: partners, marketing, channel, providers, because

Follow me:

Twitter Profile

Related Entries

Verizon Invites the Channel Once More – Mar 20, 2015

Info You Need That I Didn’t Blog About – Aug 14, 2013

ITEXPO in Austin Will Be Hot – Aug 04, 2011

TrackBacks
| Comments | Tag with del.icio.us | On Rad’s Radar? Home | Permalink: The Channel Marketing Dilemma

Copyright On Rad’s Radar?

Sponsored by Apex Technology Services, a leading IT Services company

News out of the Wall Street Journal has Avaya contemplating a Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing and selling off its call center unit.

The problem with Avaya is it is over-leveraged, which we will be saying about many telecom companies in the coming two years. The on-premise or hardware PBX business did not fold like everyone thought. However, it didn’t grow either. It slowly declined at about 3% per year.

Before its user conference, Broadsoft announced that it had hit 15 million licenses. According to Elka Popova, “The BroadSoft installed base is hosted IP telephony seats, fully-loaded UCaaS seats and business VoIP lines.” So that just means licenses – even for SIP Trunks. About 3 million of those belong to Windstream and XO (1 million and 2 million SIP trunks respectively.) Who knows how many actual hosted seats there are.

Cisco has one-third that. Office365 is at 70 million users. All of that eats into, not just Avaya, but everyone.

Avaya’s transition to cloud was slow and clunky. Mitel wasn’t smoother but it was faster. It looked like the hardware folks – Zultys, Mitel, Avaya, NEC, Siemens, ININ – were content to keep on trucking. They treated Hosted PBX much like MSO’s treat cord-cutting – deny, deny, deny – until it bites you in the ass! Then you get the lawyers, bankers and start filing BK.

“Spun off from Lucent Technologies in 2000, Avaya was a publicly traded company until 2007, when it was taken private by Silver Lake Partners and TPG Capital for more than $8 billion.” [source] $8 Billion about 9 years ago. In the meantime, they did acquire a few companies, including some Nortel assets.

Channele2e reports, “software and cloud revenues aren’t growing quickly enough to offset falling hardware revenues. Total Q2 revenue was $904 million, down $54 million compared to the prior quarter, and down $91 million year-over-year, as demand for unified communications products continued to contract, Avaya said.”

They have been talking about an IPO or spinning off Zang or selling off a division like Networking or Call Center. We’ll see what happens.

Tags: BK, broadsoft, call center, hardware, hosted pbx, pbx, UC
Related tags: million million, million, avaya, seats, hosted, hardware

Follow me:

Twitter Profile

Related Entries

UCaaS Round-Up (Tidbits 2443) – Nov 16, 2016

Marketing Lesson from the Election – Nov 09, 2016

TrackBacks
| Comments | Tag with del.icio.us | On Rad’s Radar? Home | Permalink: Avaya Has Fallen

Copyright On Rad’s Radar?

Sponsored by Apex Technology Services, a leading IT Services company

News out of the Wall Street Journal has Avaya contemplating a Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing and selling off its call center unit.

The problem with Avaya is it is over-leveraged, which we will be saying about many telecom companies in the coming two years. The on-premise or hardware PBX business did not fold like everyone thought. However, it didn’t grow either. It slowly declined at about 3% per year.

Before its user conference, Broadsoft announced that it had hit 15 million licenses. According to Elka Popova, “The BroadSoft installed base is hosted IP telephony seats, fully-loaded UCaaS seats and business VoIP lines.” So that just means licenses – even for SIP Trunks. About 3 million of those belong to Windstream and XO (1 million and 2 million SIP trunks respectively.) Who knows how many actual hosted seats there are.

Cisco has one-third that. Office365 is at 70 million users. All of that eats into, not just Avaya, but everyone.

Avaya’s transition to cloud was slow and clunky. Mitel wasn’t smoother but it was faster. It looked like the hardware folks – Zultys, Mitel, Avaya, NEC, Siemens, ININ – were content to keep on trucking. They treated Hosted PBX much like MSO’s treat cord-cutting – deny, deny, deny – until it bites you in the ass! Then you get the lawyers, bankers and start filing BK.

“Spun off from Lucent Technologies in 2000, Avaya was a publicly traded company until 2007, when it was taken private by Silver Lake Partners and TPG Capital for more than $8 billion.” [source] $8 Billion about 9 years ago. In the meantime, they did acquire a few companies, including some Nortel assets.

Channele2e reports, “software and cloud revenues aren’t growing quickly enough to offset falling hardware revenues. Total Q2 revenue was $904 million, down $54 million compared to the prior quarter, and down $91 million year-over-year, as demand for unified communications products continued to contract, Avaya said.”

They have been talking about an IPO or spinning off Zang or selling off a division like Networking or Call Center. We’ll see what happens.

Tags: BK, broadsoft, call center, hardware, hosted pbx, pbx, UC
Related tags: million million, million, avaya, seats, hosted, hardware

Follow me:

Twitter Profile

Related Entries

UCaaS Round-Up (Tidbits 2443) – Nov 16, 2016

Marketing Lesson from the Election – Nov 09, 2016

TrackBacks
| Comments | Tag with del.icio.us | On Rad’s Radar? Home | Permalink: Avaya Has Fallen

Copyright On Rad’s Radar?

Sponsored by Apex Technology Services, a leading IT Services company