Following a successful first edition Comms Business and Cavell are pleased to bring you the second event of our executive conference “Channel Leaders”. The event will take place on the 24th of April at the Cavendish Conference Centre, London, and is free to qualified executives of channel organisations.
For many of us, the change in the industry landscape and customer requirements has never been so fast paced, with new product innovation and supply chain changes rocking the fundamentals of our industry. This year at channel leaders we will really focus hard on some of those changes and look to provide some practical insight into how you can address those changes.
Some of the big questions we are looking to address include:
Will SD WAN provide the channel with a new business model?
Similar to the impact of IP Voice on traditional voice revenue, SD WAN offers both a tremendous opportunity and threat to existing network revenues. It will both take MPLS head on but also provide the opportunity to boost cloud services by providing reliability and performance over broadband type technologies. If the market plays out like the US we may see the Cloud Voice resellers pioneer the technology but also then become the Defacto providers and controllers for other cloud technologies.
How the sales process is changing with the onset of digital marketing?
One of the issues both our end customers and channels find themselves grappling with is the changing sales processes with the onslaught of digital marketing. For all of our end customers, they are finding that potential new prospects are much more self-qualified before they reach out to their suppliers, having searched and interacted online. The value and how you handle these prequalified enquiries is of massive importance, the sales process has changed. It’s the same issue for channel organisations, we will explore best practice from the channel point of view and also look at how this trend has impacted services with the growth of Analytics, AI and Contact Centre capabilities.
Secrets to growth - acquisition, verticalisation or diversification
As entrepreneurs, many of our attendees will be revisiting their growth strategy. We will explore what is the best route and hear some practical examples of different approaches we have seen work in the industry. Often we read in the press about acquisition strategies and this is an obvious route to growth but probably less considered are the options of looking to diversify into adjacent market spaces or indeed focus more on a particular vertical market.
Platform Consolidation - What's the right choice for the channel?
What a year we have had in terms of consolidation in all areas of the market both with Mitel acquiring Shoretel, Cisco acquiring BroadSoft and Genband and Sonus merging. Never before has the supply chain been so fundamentally changed, this has left many channels wondering what is the best choice for the future. At channel leader we will explore these choices and their pros and cons to help you make what is an extremely difficult choice.
Managing risk in your business - security, fraud, GDPR
As well as all the exciting opportunities channels need to understand risk within their business, so we will explore the best approaches to manage these risks.
Beyond Voice - Where are my future revenues coming from?
Although voice is still a key part of most channel businesses we are seeing people look at where sustainable revenues will come from in the future.
Channel Leaders promises to be another great event with key questions of the industry discussed and a great networking opportunity to share and learn from peers, but with only 150 tickets available make sure you apply now to avoid disappointment