The Business Solutions Network

While attending Ingram Micro's SMBA Invitational event last week, I met with several small to midsize VARs and MSPs that shared some of their business challenges with me. One recurring theme that emerged time and time again was vendor management.

One of the things I love about what I do is getting to talk to business owners and getting to hear first hand about what it takes to make it in the channel today -- including the struggles and pitfalls that seem to always precede any big payoffs. One such story that I think you'll enjoy in our May issue, which will be available at BSMinfo.com by the end of this week, is titled: "A Marriage Of Network Security And Higher Education." It's a story about an MSP that's has been in practice since 1996 and is operated by a husband and wife team, Nate and Kelly Freeman.

In our February 2010 issue, we featured KT's Office Services , an office services VAR that was projecting 20% growth by the end of 2010 due in part to selling MPS (managed print services). (Check out, “Copy Managed Print Sales”).

In our upcoming issue of Business Solutions magazine, we feature a special supplement called the Partner Program Insider. Within this special insert, my colleague Mike Monocello and I highlight trends we're seeing in the top four vertical markets our channel readers are selling into: education, government, healthcare, and retail.

Earlier this year, I would have predicted that 2012 would have been the year tape media made the same transition that film-based picture cameras made a few years ago.  At a couple of trade shows I attended, storage vendors offered up analyst stats that further confirmed this hunch, with some claiming “42% of data restores from tape fail” and others claiming that number to be as high as 71%.

In our March 2010 issue, we featured FishNet Security, a large security VAR that was projecting 15% growth by the end of the year due in part to offering virtualization and wireless solutions and adding new employees. (Check out, “Simplify Your Security Offerings To Spur Sales”).

Early this morning as I was about to send an email to a colleague, my email shut down and multiple popup messages flashed on my screen telling me my hard drive was unresponsive. Additional messages popped up from my Sophos antivirus software telling me that a virus had been detected and quarantined.

In last month's issue of Business Solutions magazine, I talked with Charles Johnson, CEO of $5.5 million network security consultant and VAR EDTS. (See 4 Secrets Of A  Trusted Network Security Advisor) His company experienced 45% revenue growth in 2011, and it's projecting 15% growth this year. One of the secrets Johnson shared with me was that he's learned to take a more consultative approach to interacting with his customers. I hear that statement so often from interviewees that it feels like a cliché at times, but the reality is that manyVARs are still stuck in the mode of trying to push products.