The technologies being used by businesses and organisations across the UK have never been more varied, with those buying technology requiring knowledgeable guidance from their service provider. This demand for expertise comes at a time when service providers are also seeing change in how their customers need support. That could be when evaluating technologies, when buying technology or ongoing support and maintenance. These broad trends are reshaping distributors, resellers and MSPs as they adjust to customer needs. As such, many channel companies are investing in learning and development to ensure their workforce can keep up with customers and technology.
Learning and development are vital to long-term success and all stakeholders within the Channel ecosystem have a role to play. Vendors, distributors, resellers and MSPs are finding themselves with new responsibilities and taking the time to understand the expectations of your partners is a good starting point. Then, the real work can start.
So, how are the learning and development needs of channel companies changing? Matt Piddington, vice president, services, Westcon-Comstor, pointed out the reality of the skills gap as well as the fluidity of the jobs market.
He explained, “Like most businesses, those in the channel are finding their feet in the shifting employer-employee dynamic, which is feeding the need to invest heavily in learning and development. Firstly, there’s the skills gap. In order to not only attract, but retain the very best talent, channel companies need to put a razor-sharp focus on nurturing and developing their people.
“Secondly, the transition towards the subscription economy means partners are working much closer with their vendors. With the technology on offer evolving rapidly, offering more features and capabilities on a shorter update cycle than hardware-based tech, partners need to make sure their teams are constantly learning, in a bid to stay up to date.
“There’s also a need for the channel to start to respond as a community, and to build learning and development into its DNA. It’s a collective responsibility to ensure that the people that work within it have the skills, competence, and capability to add value. This becomes increasingly important for those in the channel to continue to maintain and maximise competitive advantage and ensure that they remain relevant to technology vendors and end customers alike.”
April Gross, global head of sales and channel partner enablement, N-able, agreed the unstable jobs market is having an impact on learning and development. She said, “Like many other industries, the channel industry is facing a labour shortage which is in turn affecting learning and development needs.
“Channel companies are looking for ways to ensure that new hires can be onboarded and ramped up quickly, especially any less-tenured staff. This is where having a strong learning and development plan comes into play. Additionally, to retain talent, providing growth and development opportunities is key. Channel companies that succeed in this area will see a positive impact on their employee satisfaction and churn rates.”
For Phil Toms, senior manager, sales, BT Wholesale, the depth and breadth of potential technologies requires all channel businesses to ensure their sales teams have the appropriate knowledge so they can identify the best solution.
He explained, “The channel is a unique place in which to sell. Whether it’s the huge variety of products and solutions available, or the vertical market in which a channel partner operates, every opportunity will require a sales team to be both knowledgeable and adaptable.
“In fact, this adaptability has become key to selling in the channel, and to ensuring that demand can be met in a satisfying manner – especially given the extent to which the acceleration of digital transformation is changing the very nature of the sales journey.”
Learning is mandatory
Learning and development is now of vital importance for all channel stakeholders, whether that’s a reseller, an MSP, a dealers or a distributor. Thomas Witting, senior director of global distribution sales, N-able, explained that this can be tricky to prioritise when the results can be seen much later than the initial investment. He said, “Learning new things is mandatory for every business in IT even though it may not see immediate results.
“Consequently, trainings and development initiatives from vendors need to balance time and information carefully. This means creating training initiatives that are not only tailored to the needs of channel players but are also ‘self-service’—so that partners can conduct these in their own time, anytime, anywhere.”
It is also important to create a learning culture so that employees are prepared for continual upskilling if appropriate. Piddington, from Westcon-Comstor, said, “Creating a learning culture is perhaps the single most important thing an organisation can do to be successful. As technology evolves, new needs arise, additional roles are added and responsibilities change. Being agile and responding to this, by skilling the right people up, in the right places, is critical.
“Technology may be the single largest driver of digital transformation, but unless an organisation’s employees have the necessary skills, capabilities, and confidence to support digital transformation initiatives, they will fail. There are also real, tangible business benefits to investing in learning and development programmes, that shouldn’t be overlooked. Not only will employees be more empowered, perform better and develop faster, but business innovation will also thrive, and overall business performance will improve - in turn, benefiting customers.”
Piddington added that investing in certifications can be a way for a channel company to differentiate itself, and that they can extend their training programmes to include end customers. He said, “Channel companies need to clearly demonstrate their learning and development credentials, either through formal certification, licences, or frameworks. This represents a real opportunity to differentiate, increase revenue and increase customer satisfaction.
“Often overlooked is also the raw commercial opportunity that a robust learning and development programme presents. It’s often the case that customers need just as much training and education on technologies and specific solutions. So, by not packaging that up and selling it to end users businesses are missing out on revenue and margin opportunities.”
Developing a strategy
Once a channel company has resolved to put a training programme in place, the next step is for management or HR teams to develop a learning and development strategy. Westcon-Comstor’s Piddington explained his view that taking a long-term view here is crucial. He said, “An approach to learning and development should always be strategic, considered and forward-looking. It’s prudent for channel companies to think long-term.
“About three to five years into the future is a sensible timeframe. With this timeframe, channel companies can carefully plan for the skills and capabilities they need, not just today but in the near future, and actively work towards them.
“The first step is always conducting a skills gap and training gap analysis. This helps identify any gaps in employee training including any competency, knowledge or skills that are lacking. It’s critical to understand where employees need further support to provide that and build in training for skills that they may not need yet but will do soon.
“It’s also important to take a bespoke approach to personnel development, while making sure that it’s in line with company needs. There are tools that can support this, such as the Skills Framework for Information Age and the European e-Competency Framework.
“Once a framework is built, managers can help build this into employees’ regular performance development and review processes. We’ve seen great success in coupling instructor-led training with virtual, self-paced training that allows employees to progress at a rate that works for them.”
John Igoe, sales manager, channel partners, CityFibre, explained how his company delivers training to all employees through the HR department. He said, “We have adopted an L&D focused approach, with a dedicated team within the HR department. They work with all areas of the business to offer a varied and supportive training programme that not only covers job role related courses, but also practical skills such as presentation skills and decision making.
“There really is something for everyone and it’s all managed via an easy-to-use portal that helps to track progress and suggest potential courses of interest. This approach ensures all of our employees have the skills and knowledge they need to perform professionally but also to keep them motivated and engaged.”
Evaluating employee needs
It is also essential employers consider the different training needs that different employees will require, whether that’s due to their experience or their job role.
BT Wholesale’s Toms discussed why salespeople, in particular, can benefit from tailored training. He said, “Salespeople need to come out of their comfort zones. To ensure they can keep up with ever-changing demands, it’s important that they upskill to the point where they have full visibility over – and knowledge of – the latest solutions, products, and industry trends.
“In parallel with the evolution of technologies and customer requirements, there has been a rise in the role of the specialist salesperson in the channel. This is due to the requirement for salespeople to have a broader and more in-depth understanding of product, services, and solutions in order to support their partners’ wider business strategies.
“With salespeople in the driving seat when it comes to how and when their partners and customers adopt the latest technologies, it’s essential that they undergo ongoing training, continually honing their skill and industry knowledge to take those customers on a smooth and straightforward sales journey.
“Salespeople should be constantly encouraged to learn new skills and develop their market knowledge. Nothing will future-proof a customer’s business and its solutions more than when their channel partner’s sales team improves the service it offers by gaining new knowledge and expertise.”
Jeff May, sales director, Konftel, agreed that sales teams should be prioritised for training opportunities. He said, “From our point of view sales teams are the most important conduit between vendors, distributors, resellers and their customers. Solutions-based selling is now a priority. The sales process is changing with much more emphasis on pre-sales and acting as a consultant rather than just going on the internet and buying an individual product. The role for a reseller is looking at adding value by building solutions.
Piddington, from Westcon-Comstor, pointed about three key areas within a channel company where training opportunities should be focused. He said, “In my view, there are a few teams that should be prioritised including the salesforce, customer experience and engineering communities. The first two simply because they are both client-facing and interact with customers, on a daily basis. Meaning that it’s imperative that they’re equipped with the right soft skills to engage with them appropriately and effectively.
“However, the engineering teams are arguably more important as they work directly with the technology and accompanying solutions. It’s crucial that their skills are up to scratch to build new and updated products that meet market needs and customer demands.”
Witting, from N-able, pointed out the importance of ensuring customer-facing team members are adequately trained.He said, “Every customer-facing team should be at the forefront of learning programmes. More specifically, the focus should not be on prioritisation but on customisation as every target audience requires not just a different type of information but also a different granularity of information. For example, tech support staff at channel partners will require much deeper and longer training sessions than sales teams.
“This shouldn’t just stop at IT and sales teams. Adding business training to increase partners’ knowledge on the financial aspects of the MSP business is beneficial to success.”
The role of vendors
Resellers, MSPs, dealers, and distributors are increasingly adding weight to the training provided by vendors when evaluating new or existing partners. For this reason, vendors are adding clear training and development opportunities to their partner programmes.
Piddington, from Westcon-Comstor, said vendors are focusing on the training opportunities they offer their partners. “As a general trend, we’re seeing vendors pay more attention to learning and development, but their approaches vary. Those which are focused more on compliance require all partners to meet competency and certification requirements before they are allowed to sell any of their products.
“There are some which are mature in their approach to learning and development, which have accredited training companies, offering industry recognised certification. They’re prioritising learning and development and incentivising its adoption with their partners.”
May, from Konftel, discussed how the manufacturer ensures its partners have the knowledge they need to deliver for their customers. He said, “[We] offer a wide range of learning and development support. That could be face-to-face, webinars for our customers and also joint webinars with our partners for their customers. We work side-by-side with them.” May explained that the company’s efforts are designed to “massively reduce the sales cycle”.
For CityFibre’s Igoe, support starts with learning, but this needs to be combined with other types of support. He said, “We work closely with our channel partners, supporting them in every way we can to ensure we both maximise the opportunity. We focus on providing strong levels of marketing support and funding and within that we provide advice, guidance, and training not only to our channel partners directly, but also in conjunction with them to their own customers and partners.
“This can take many forms – we’ve previously run sales training and workshops for partners, presented for them on webinars and at their own events and we provide a variety of cobranded collateral they can use to educate their partners and customers.
“In terms of learning and development for our own channel partners, we provide comprehensive sales, marketing and product support. For example, we recently provided specific tailored training on online marketing best practice, and regularly provide access to our full network data and to lead gen data via a broker’s portal to fuel email and direct mail campaigns. This enables the partners to assess the size of the markets and deliver highly targeted marketing.”
Igoe added that in-person events are an essential component to any training offering. “We invite partners to events throughout the year where we not only discuss the latest product information, network build stats and customer improvements but also market trend analysis and even motivational training from expert guest speakers, adding real value to the events.”