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Channel Debate: Do Aggregators Change the Value Prop of Connectivity?

Canalys analysts at Channel Partners and Expo 2024

A panel of aggregators discussed their role in partnering for customer success and enhanced customer experience during a Channel Partners Conference & Expo 2024 in Las Vegas.

Alastair Edwards, Chief Analyst at Canalys, moderated the panel on the value of aggregation in the partner community. The panel consisted of experts Charlie Pagliazzo (VP Channels, Granite Telecommunications), Margi Shaw (CEO, Nitel), and Max Silber (VP IoT & AI, MetTel) at

Here is a transcript of their conversation:

Edwards: Good morning and welcome. We're going to talk about the value of aggregation. I've got a great panel here to help with the discussion. Please have a seat and we'll get started.

Defining Aggregation in the Channel 

So I'd like to welcome, first of all, Charlie Pagliazzo from Granite, Margi Shaw from Nitel, and Max Silber from MetTel. Welcome everybody. Thank you. So today, we're going to talk about aggregation. It's a big topic for this audience.

We want to talk about how the value prop of aggregation is changing and what you as partners can do to leverage that and how you can work with some of these companies on the stage to extract greater value that you can deliver to your customers. But let's start with a simple question.

Business Perspectives on Aggregation

You're all slightly different in your businesses. First of all, in 30 seconds, can you each describe your business and say what aggregation means to each of you? Charlie, you want to go?

 

Granite's Perspective

Pagliazzo: Sure, Alistair, thank you. At Granite, we embrace the title of aggregator. As a company, we provide managed voice data and field services across the US and Canada. We have well over 600,000 locations that we support in our aggregation model, nearly a million data circuits out there, and a million POTS lines, for those of you who remember back in the day of POTS lines aggregation. To us, aggregation means the opportunity to provide multiple services to partners and their end users so that they can continue to grow their business.

Nitel's Perspective

Shaw: So, Nitel was kind of born in the data networking era, as opposed to a little bit more of the voice services arena. We focus on providing large scale, wide area networks to clients, building a tapestry of best-in-class availability of network connectivity to those locations. So, that we kind of call our underlay. All this network connectivity and so forth is part of the strong value proposition we have for wide area networking. And then on top of the underlay, we actually build a very smart layer of overlay that helps us manage application performance and connectivity to cloud applications, survivability, all that kind of great stuff that makes the network resilient and work properly for customers. But it also gives them the ability to work with one vendor to complement diversity requirements as well as performance across failover.

 MetTel's Perspective

Silber: I think, similarly to some of my colleagues here, I'd say where it's pivoting is I describe us as a global network and technology provider. So I think the concept of aggregation isn't just limited anymore to the pipe, whatever that pipe could be, mobile or fixed or satellite or whatever it might be, but really providing that complete end-to-end solution for enterprise customers. Typically we're kind of in that, I'd say 5,000 corporation and organization space. Those are really the base of users we provide to really, as an output, provide an enterprise-grade experience.

Value and Growth in Aggregation

Edwards: So all slightly different areas, but all with a common objective. I guess if we try and quantify a little bit of this idea of value, one of the things that has been said is this is a commoditizing space. Is that true in your businesses? Are you seeing growth? How is your revenue performing? Maybe you can just touch briefly on that.

Customer Experience and Aggregation

And we see so many high-value solutions and applications now that are running on those aggregated networks. That's really the opportunity, isn't it? That's where the growth is. So maybe, Charlie, can you talk about what some of those look like within your business?

Granite's Customer-Centric Approach

Pagliazzo: I think when you control the connectivity, when you control as a partner, you're controlling the customer's network. There's so many steps that you can then take to deliver what they need, and both Max and Margi touched on a couple of things. 

I think we've transformed from aggregating locations and invoices to being an aggregator of solutions. So when you control the network, and you can make the decision, what are we looking to do? How are we taking that legacy MPLS and making the decision for which of the multiple SD-WAN solutions that an aggregator can provide compared to being locked down to just utilizing one. Having options for partners really allows them to customize. And so for us, whether you're looking at bringing an SD-WAN solution into play, leveraging our network overall and network as a service, there's so many things that technology is allowing partners to embrace.

Partnering for Customer Success

Edwards: You've all talked about the customer at some point. So let's briefly touch on the customer because a lot of this is about customer experience, ultimately the experience of the end customer. So how do you think about it in those terms? What, how are you jointly working with partners to reinforce the customer experience? Margie, any thoughts on that?

Nitel's Approach to Customer Experience

Shaw: Yeah, I definitely would say I think the conversations have moved more towards bandwidth, away from bandwidth requirements, which was part of the original perception of aggregators. Like, I can buy my bandwidth from one place and I'll get a single bill and that's the value proposition. 

But I think we've moved well away from single bill being the biggest piece of the value proposition and moving more towards the conversations about business performance, application performance, survivability and security and with that you get definitely a full layer of accountability. So you start with the accountability around diverse entrance facilities around delivery of multiple vehicles of bandwidth for the location and then you move into the accountability for billing and correct billing so that you're not auditing 100 different bills and so forth and you move into say that single service center from a knock perspective.

 But now we're moving into kind of these overlay networks which are now saying I'm going to be that single accountability for you around the way your applications are performing and this conversation is about those critical applications that are required for you to run your business and this aggregation of network, which used to be almost like, are you an aggregator or an aggregator? I don't know, but back in the day, but now that single layer of aggregation is becoming such an important value within the way IT directors and CIOs are looking at managing the way their applications are performing both at the customer locations as well as your handoffs into cloud applications that are providing you with a lot of these mission-critical applications.

Managed Services and Customer-Centricity

Edwards: And obviously managed services is a critical way of delivering that sort of customer experience and consistency of experience as well. And Max, your business, you offer managed network services as well. Do you work with MSPs as part of that?

Maximizing Partner Potential

Silber: I think the reality is we work with everyone. I think, ultimately, there's an element of, and a lot of folks that are in the room today, there's an element of how you approach the problem with your customer. But I think, ultimately, what you're driving to, and it's interesting, I've been doing this for a couple of years now, coming up on stage and talking about kind of where to focus. I used to tell people: “customer first.” Don't worry about the technology, just [put] the customer first. Now I think I look at it as a solution first. Because what I've learned. Customers are actually not in the business of deploying networks. They're in the business of deploying solutions.

And like the gentleman that was on before us, to be able to enhance their service delivery with things like AI and other tools, all those things come back to networks. You can't do any of those things if you cannot connect. And whether in my specific business unit with mobile devices, with handheld devices, with IoT sensors in the field, you can have the greatest sensor in the world. If you don't have any connectivity, it's not going back into a hub where you can run AI-based data and try to figure out how to deliver a better solution to your end users as a customer. 

So I think you have to first and foremost look at it from a solution perspective. You've got Widget or App X. How do you get App X or Widget X out in the field to the users? And the answer is always network. I think what's also important to note, if you're not familiar, if you haven't done this before, you're going to find out really quickly, there is no one network out there that solves all the problems. So you need to, and in many cases, it could come from an MSP, could come from another source, but I look at our vast customer base and different verticals. They all have one thing in common.

 

They don't even know it. Every one of those deployments has no less than three separate technologies. It could be broadband, wireless services, and satellite services, just to name a few. But what the customer is really looking for when they're deploying the solution is they're looking for the easy button. They're looking for, I just want it to be out in the field, I want it to work, yes, and 95% of the places I could use technology X versus technology Y, but they don't care about any of that. That's not the business they're in. 

So I think it's important for MSPs. I think it's important for anyone, however your approach is to your customer base, to always arm yourself really with a kind of look up on stage, this is your Swiss Army knife right here. You could pull out the corkscrew remover, you could pull out the knife, you could pull out the file, whatever you need, that's part of your value in delivering that solution to your customer. That's why customers are coming to you, whether you're an MSP, whether you're a cost optimization consultant, it doesn't really matter. They're looking for you to always have that tool chest, and they're also looking for you to pivot as technology changes, as the needs of the business and the solution changes over time.

Channel Partner Dynamics

Edwards: That’s a fascinating segue because actually when you talk about creating that seamless experience for customers and it just works for them, as we all know, to be able to deliver all those solutions and services and so on, it requires a huge amount of effort and capability by the providers in the tech space. So let's talk about partners for a minute because the demands on channel partners are changing. As you said, you're having to pivot into new areas, they're having to develop new skills. Now, Charlie, your role is VP of channels at Granite. So what does channel mean for you and how do you see your partner strategy changing?

Empowering Channel Partners

Pagliazzo: Well, it really comes down to the partner community that are really the experts in this evolving technology. Our partners have spent a lot of time understanding these new technologies, and hopefully, Granite as a company is doing its part to make sure that they have access to training, they have access to understanding those technologies.

I mean, to Max's point about the Swiss Army knife, if partners can recognize what their clients are looking for, the aggregator solution, we can still use that term, allows them to design, work with us to design a solution that's going to stick, that's going to meet their needs. My colleague Mark Palmer is responsible for the digital transformation solutions, talks about filling gaps. Because to your point, every client has different needs. And for us to ensure that our partners have the ability, no matter who that client or prospect that they're talking to can leverage solution that meets, whatever that gap is, are they trying to upgrade their network, that they want to start leveraging advanced software and artificial intelligence? Having all of those things available to them, I think from a partner standpoint, if they know they can depend on a provider, an aggregated provider to deliver all those, they're able to step into areas that they can get into revenue streams that they haven't been able to participate in before. And at the end of the day, how do we get into more solutions that drive more revenue? I mean, hopefully, we can help partners do that.