INDUSTRY VIEW
Instead of assessing every commercial customer against the economics of a large enterprise transaction, partners need to consider the potential created by shorter sales cycles, greater frequency and a much broader addressable market.
This also changes an important assumption about the SME opportunity for the channel. Enterprise-grade technology does not necessarily have to move downmarket by competing aggressively on price. Instead, SMEs are moving up the maturity curve. Having experienced the hidden costs associated with fragmented environments, they are increasingly capable of recognising the value of investing more upfront if the result is simpler management, greater integration and a technology estate their teams can realistically support.
A different kind of sales motion That doesn’ t mean the channel can simply take its enterprise sales model and apply it to smaller customers. Commercial sales cycles tend to be shorter, customers expect quicker responses, and individual deal values will still often be considerably smaller. A salesperson accustomed to pursuing US $ 100,000 or US $ 200,000 opportunities may understandably struggle to prioritise a US $ 5,000 opportunity, even when that deal makes perfect commercial sense within a higher-volume business.
The opportunity therefore requires a different way of thinking about value. Instead of assessing every commercial customer against the economics of a large enterprise transaction, partners need to consider the potential created by shorter sales cycles, greater frequency and a much broader addressable market. Dedicated commercial specialists can help here, as can repeatable offerings and sales structures designed around velocity rather than the size of any individual transaction.
This distinction is important because SMEs may increasingly want enterprise-grade technology, but they don’ t necessarily want an enterprise-style procurement experience. Partners that can combine sophisticated technology with a sales and support model appropriate to a smaller organisation, will be better positioned than those that simply treat commercial customers as scaled-down enterprise accounts.
Scaling the opportunity Distribution also becomes increasingly important as this market expands. Vendors can maintain deep relationships with a relatively concentrated group of strategic partners and major enterprise accounts. Replicating that level of engagement across hundreds, or potentially thousands, of smaller commercial opportunities is far more difficult. Distributors already have relationships across broader reseller communities, along with the technical expertise and partner enablement capabilities needed to extend that reach.
This opens the market to a wider range of partners too. Smaller resellers and managed service providers often have close relationships with commercial customers and a detailed understanding of their technology environments. With the right support from distribution, those relationships can become an effective route for introducing more consolidated, enterprise-grade approaches without requiring the vendor to engage directly with every opportunity.
Those that continue treating the mid-market according to yesterday’ s assumptions risk overlooking one of the more interesting growth opportunities emerging in the channel. Those that recognise how much the segment has matured, and adapt their strategy accordingly, will be much better placed to capture it.
Recognising the new mid-market opportunity For the channel, the mistake would be to interpret all of this as evidence that the mid-market has simply become a new battleground for cheaper enterprise technology. The more significant change is happening on the customer side. These organisations have experienced what happens when years of individually sensible purchasing decisions accumulate into an environment that is expensive and difficult to manage. Their understanding of value is evolving accordingly, and that makes them increasingly receptive to technology investments that might previously have been considered beyond the requirements, or budgets, of a commercial account.
Capitalising on this will require the channel to evolve alongside the customer. Partners need to reconsider which accounts are worth pursuing, how they structure their sales teams, how quickly they respond to opportunities and how effectively they use distributors and specialist resources to achieve scale. Those that continue treating the mid-market according to yesterday’ s assumptions risk overlooking one of the more interesting growth opportunities emerging in the channel. Those that recognise how much the segment has matured, and adapt their strategy accordingly, will be much better placed to capture it. •
INTELLIGENT TECH CHANNELS MIDDLE EAST AND AFRICA 37