Following 50% growth in its UK channel business last year, AvePoint’s latest priority is to encourage its 280-300 strong UK-wide partner ecosystem to leverage its distribution pathways, diversify and do more with the vendor.
During the AvePoint’s OnPoint event, held in Manchester on the 19th, Chris Shaw, Channel Director, Elements UK&I and SA, told IT Europa: “We want more net new partners, but a large focus of our investment financially and in terms of knowledge modelling is currently directed towards helping our partners see the broader ability to sell multiple things to the same customer.
“MSPs increasingly want to sell multiple technologies to the same seat within that customer and enabling that is our differentiator. To support this, our three main focus points are around data security and governance, simplified engagement for MSPs and making the most of AI.” OnPoint Manchester focused on the latter theme through the lens of gaining a competitive edge and boosting business value.
Maximise AI opportunities
A panel featuring Flannery Devine Gibbons, Microsoft Alliance Lead at CDW, Richard Flanders, Commercial Director at Aura Technology, and Russell Lack, Solutions Director at Capgemini illuminated the channel’s key consultative role in AI growth, conflicting with Canalys’ recent assertion that AI opportunities would be limited to the big cloud hyperscalers.
Flanders noted: “MSPs haven’t missed the boat with yet with AI but there needs to be a fundamental shift in go to market strategies. Those MSPs that flourish with AI will adopt an outcomes-based approach to selling that focuses on end-user application and productivity benefits.” Here he highlights a third stage of evolution for MSPs that centres around consultancy, application integration and AI. The closer consultative approach will help overcome issues around perceived ROI, which is not evident from AI deployments. Lack stated: “These tools can be a big investments and people can’t see where that money is going as organisations don’t have good methodology for measuring productivity KPIs.” He added that this may be more evident if licenses started free of charge, with costs implemented once the value to the business is already understood.
Flanders pointed out that most AI adoption is at a rudimentary stage and tech decision makers are crying out for education. “In many cases this is C-Suite purchasing Co-pilot licenses,” he said. “However, they don’t know where most of the touchpoints are in their organisations, with staff using it for everyday tasks, leading to a massive shadow IT problem.” Flannery agreed that the adoption journey will be a long process starting with note taking and generative AI. “We are just at the crest of adoption currently,” she added. Lack echoed the need for education to make investments effective: “Most of our clients are at the beginning of their AI journey because adoption is easy. The challenge is helping them scale safely and securely and knowledge and training are key.”
This is increasingly important with AI as the rate of change is so steep Flanders noted: “Some customers still haven’t got their head around moving away from on-premises, so the education piece can be difficult. In many instances you are trying to build the knowledge of something complex into an already shaky knowledge foundation.” This looped back to the idea of leading with business outcomes, then explaining how the technology can help achieve this.
Lack highlighted another issue around security: “Compliance is slowing down AI adoption in data-sensitive industries where clients fear oversharing or data-leaking.” Flannery also pointed to the EU AI act which has enforced much more stringent use and often re-assessment existing adoptions. She said: “Work with customers to really prepare the ground for AI adoption and work through good data security and governance as part of the education piece. Help them cleanse and classify their data so that their outputs can be meaningful.”
An audience member pointed out that pushback is also coming from customers who have used basic web-based AI tools in the consumer space and had negative interactions. He claimed that this is likely putting them off using AI in the commercial space. Lack responded: “You can get over this by drinking your own champagne and showing customers that you have seen the benefits of adoption in your own organisations.
Industrialising its platform
Helping its channel seize opportunities such as AI, Avepoint is working on industrialising its platform, a process Shaw says will help them “go further, faster.” This will be done through investment in terms of the headcount and in the technology platform. Shaw’s team head count has increased 20% in the last year and around 35% are in the software development side driving the technology forward. “We want to explore how partners can do more with less vendors and deliver more value to their own partners,” he said.
The platform will look at streamlining motions for MSPS. Shaw added: “We want to slim down the time it takes for MSPs to do time consuming tasks so they can scale up their activity and have multiple conversations with clients. This will enable them to leverage AI opportunities as they can work with organisations more efficiently to look at their data, create security profiles and risk management documentation. This will make the message resonate more strongly.”
