The Impact Of SaaS on POS/AIDC Resellers

Jeff Yelton, president of ScanSource's POS and Barcoding Division, talks with Jameson Publishing and Business Solutions magazine President Jim Roddy in this exclusive Executive-To-Executive interview. In this interview, Yelton makes strong predictions on how SaaS (Software-as-a-Service), cloud computing, and managed services will impact the channel in the next 2-4 years, and he gives specific advice how VARs can -- and need to -- reshape their businesses as a reaction to these trends.

"(VARs) definitely need to be able to communicate in that networking language at a minimum so they control the conversation inside the end user," Yelton says. "As things come up about the network, they need to have an opinion on it or a point of view on it. That is absolutely at a minimum, or that IT vendor will take over that conversation. ...

"The whole concept of managed services or becoming an ISV or providing Software-as-a-Service takes a long time to get there, and there's a long learning curve. And so if you wait too long to see where the market's going, you might not be able to get caught up because everybody will have too much of a lead on you for you to be able to be competitive long-term. ... It definitely is not a situation of 'if.' It is a situation of 'when.' I think that anybody that is being a good steward to their company needs to start thinking strategically about, 'Where do my talents and balance sheet best lend me to go?'"