Channel partners are looking forward to “significant” growth this year, according to a new report from Nuvias.
Just short of two-thirds of partners are expecting over five per cent growth with 43 per cent of partners surveyed anticipating growing their business in excess of 10 per cent by the end of 2021.
The positive outlook follows a 2020 that has been challenged by the COVID-19 pandemic but, despite this, 69 per cent of those surveyed viewed delays as a result of the coronavirus as the least important challenge they face.
The report found that growing customer base and competitive bidding were the biggest challenges facing channel partners, adding that the most valuable areas distributors can enable partners to achieve their growth ambitions is in support of technical sales and marketing.
Gordon Lyon, Customer Director for UK&I at Nuvias, commented: “We share our partners’ positive outlook for 2021; our industry has shown resilience in 2020 – with adversity comes opportunity.
“In line with partners’ need to grow their customer base, we have invested in dynamic business intelligence and reseller acceleration platforms, to help our partners drive more opportunity”
“Our priority remains to keep collaboration tight with partners as our collective intelligence will help us deliver to fast-changing customer needs.”
Growth Drivers
The report also found that Cybersecurity is considered by far the best driver of growth, with 82 per cent of respondents agreeing that the technology sector offers the channel, the biggest opportunity for growth.
Due to the mass adoption of working from home, partners see that their customers need to secure a wider network of devices, especially given the rise in cloud adoption. This is exemplified by the findings that just short of three quarters (74 per cent) of partners rated Cloud Security as the area they expect the most growth.
“We mirror the feedback of our customers in relation to Cloud security, which we also see as a key focus area for 2021” said Lyon.
“It is rewarding to see enthusiasm for the cybersecurity sector, as we have made significant investments in both personnel and value-added services in this area in 2020 and will continue to do so in 2021.”
