CHANNEL PARTNERS CONFERENCE & EXPO -- At a power panel last week, channel leaders from top telcos discussed their plans – many already underway -- for evolving into leading tech companies.
The panelists included Tim Acker, VP of channel sales for Lumen Technologies; Rich Carrera, region VP of AT&T Business; Paul Spencer, channel chief for T-Mobile for Business; and Mark Tina, channel chief and VP of indirect partner sales at Verizon Business. Kelly Danziger and Bob DeMarzo of Channel Partners moderated the keynote session.
The channel chiefs agreed that telcos haven’t always been as channel friendly as they should be, but they have taken steps to correct that by adding services and leaders with channel experience. They see great opportunity for growth by expanding their technology and building indirect channels to market. That growth requires help from conference attendees, of course.
“All of us are technology companies, and we’re going to continue to push the envelope of what are the different service offerings we have for customers,” Spencer said. “One of the great things about this room is, you guys help us go solve a lot of these technology problems. We can't go to market and help customers without this room.”
Tina pointed out how Verizon has already evolved beyond being only a phone company by offering tech services such as cybersecurity and artificial intelligence.
“We’ve evolved drastically, and the way we've been able to do it is through our partner ecosystem,” he said. “Connectivity and having a reliable network will always be at our core, but it's really what can we do with that network? And it's the services that ride on that network that become differentiated. Cybersecurity is a critical, critical component of doing business in today's environment, whether you're in a mobile environment or in your core infrastructure. We've been in the business for decades. Working AI into the fold with our partners and our customers, is another big piece that we are invested in. We've got products already rolling, and we'll continue to invest more there to differentiate.”
Acker said Lumen’s channel strategy includes having the correct leaders as well as the correct technologies.
“We’ve made investments in product and network, et cetera,” Acker said. “We're also making investments in leaders that are coming in from channel-led companies, from our CEO Kay Johnson to our CRO Ashley Haynes-Gaspar, there's a number of people, including myself, who are channel-friendly or have run a channel organization.”
Acker said the channel-friendly leaders bring a new perspective to how Lumen goes to market. “I think we all [telcos] have struggled in the past,” he said. “The idea of direct versus indirect has been a challenge, and we’re looking at it as how are our direct sellers and our partners coming together to solve customer problems.”
Referring to Johnson’s claim that she wants 70% of Lumen’s business to go through partners in the next two to five years, Acker said “that creates a massive opportunity for people in this room.”
Carrera said all AT&T’s segment leaders have been in the indirect channel.
“We put the leaders in place that know the channel and the distribution model, and we're excited about that,” he said.
He added that AT&T's evolution and channel growth comes from delivering wireless and wireline solutions together.
"We want to capture every customer as a converged customer, and so the growth is selling both. It's just saying every customer should have both fiber and mobile," Carrera said.
Channel Conflict Inevitable for Telcos
The telco panelists agreed that their expanded emphasis on indirect channel sales will lead to conflicts. Spencer said there will always be conflict when providers sell through direct and indirect channels, but the important thing is to build strong relationships.
“Because when stuff goes sideways, and inevitably it does, it's all about the relationship and trust you have,” he said. “And partners, they'll say, ‘Hey, this didn't work out the way we all planned it to.’ But what are we going to do to make it right for you as the partners that are out there, and how do we connect this in the future? And I will tell you, I would say three, four years ago, we had a lot of conflict as we started to mature.”
Tina, who ran Verizon’s direct sales for decades before moving to the indirect side, said “If there’s no conflict, someone’s not hustling. And I’m serious about that. The way we deal with conflict is to figure out the right solution for the customer. How do we provide it, and who owns the relationship? People buy from people. And if that customer wants to do business with a channel partner, aside from Verizon, with Verizon, partially with Verizon, we've got all sorts of different programs out there.”
Acker said Lumen addressed “disconnects” between its channel and distribution organizations by moving them into one group.
“We're really now in a point of acceleration of those and so we're not only just changing the hearts and minds of our sellers and our company around the value of partners, but it's also now creating new partnerships to deliver these solutions,” he said. “We’re investing in different types of partners.”
Earlier in the conference, T-Mobile for Business SVP of sales George Fischer said T-Mobile is looking to grow channel revenue by close to 50% year-over-year.
Spencer joked, “That’s a great story for the room and a terrible story for me because my quota continues to go up.”
Others on the power panel said they also expect significant increases in channel business.
“Very recently we were only single-digit indirect distribution and we are now into healthy double digits and we’re looking to go north from there,” Tina said of Verizon. “And we’re looking to do it the right way, not shifting from left pocket to right pocket. We’re looking to increase distribution, whether its geographic or product such as fiber and mobility.”
Acker said it’s important for telcos’ direct sellers to realize partners are “friends, not foes.”
"We went from agents to advisors, and that is a big shift in the minds and the hearts of our sellers, because they're not just there when they're getting paid," Acker said. "They're doing things we can't do. They're getting us into corners that we can't get: the CISO, the CTO, the CIO. And typically, we're not having that level of dialogue activity today."