For a couple years now, we’ve been strongly advising IT VARs to take advantage of the opportunity to sell their clients IP video solutions, which are dropping in price and increasing in capabilities. In a time when the economy still shows signs of weakness, seeing such strong potential for you is exciting.  Continue Reading..

Last week I was at ScanSource's annual partner conference. As opposed to previous years when the value-added distributor had separate events for each of its different business units, this year marked the company's 20th anniversary, calling for an "all divisions" celebration and educational event.  Continue Reading..

If there's been one trend that's really come on strong over the past month, it's been big data. At last month's CompTIA Breakaway event, it was one of the four big trends talked about, and more recently at ScanSource's partner conference, which I attended this week, it was also one of the main topics talked about. As trade publications and the blogsphere continue to explode with big data coverage, be...  Continue Reading..

Many of the articles appearing on this blog are promoted via various social media channels. The one medium which has been yielding some very insightful responses has been LinkedIn, specifically in our Business Solutions' VAR & MSP group. In response to my recent "The Death Of POS VARs" article, Morgan Moran, Director of Customer Experience at Kheelan Business Technologies, wrote:  Continue Reading..

I recently attended ScanSource’s Partner conference in Greenville, SC. The value-added distributor celebrated its 20th anniversary. During the morning keynote session, Mike Baur, CEO, identified and Greg Dixon, CTO, expanded on four trends that are disrupting the IT channel:  Continue Reading..

If you're struggling to remain relevant in today's changing world of retail IT, it's probably time to take a look at the lineup of solutions you're offering. No longer is it adequate to simply sell a POS hardware bundle. Based on conversations I've had with successful profitable VARs and industry experts whose opinions I trust, here are the offerings that tomorrow's successful retail IT VAR provides. In no particular...  Continue Reading..

Every year Business Solutions conducts a survey soliciting feedback from our readers on the topics they like reading about in our publication -- as well as the topics they don't like. This year's survey led to some surprising revelations, which are playing a key role in our 2013 editorial planning, which is already well underway. One thing you won't see as much of next year in the magazine are industry...  Continue Reading..

I've been doing a lot of blogging lately on the benefits and challenges of selling managed services. A lot of what I share comes from talking with managed services providers and getting their insights about what works and what doesn't. You can learn from their successes as well as their mistakes. Just in case you missed some of these posts, here's a roundup of the most recent 8:  Continue Reading..

As I've been talking with networking, storage, and managed services vendors and MSPs about trends they're seeing in the channel and getting feedback on Business Solutions' editorial coverage plans for 2013, I've noticed a common theme emerging to my question: "What are the top challenges MSPs are wrestling with?" Everyone I've spoken with is talking about the hybrid business model that's resulting from...  Continue Reading..

One of the biggest challenges managed services providers face is coming up with the right pricing for their services. We've talked about the pitfalls of underselling your managed services (see "Do You Make This Common MSP Sales Mistake?"), but during my recent conversation with Bob Lawson, product director at GFI Software, he shared some additional mistakes -- 4 to be specific -- that any MSP would be wise to avoid. Here they...  Continue Reading..