Interaction - Priya Prakash, Channel Sales Manager, Everest IMS

Priya Prakash, Channel Sales Manager, Everest IMS Technologies talks about the channel business of her organisation.

Briefly explain your role in your organisation

Priya Prakash - My role is crucial towards managing the channel ecosystem for South India. I help grow the channel ecosystem for our company and once they are identified and signed-in, I help maintain a good relationship with them. I then assign partner sales goals and objectives which are decided based on the strengths and demographic of the partner, strategise on sales planning, and develop channel sales strategies.  I monitor and evaluate the performance of the channel ecosystem, identifying areas of improvement and making recommendations to partners and resellers. I also manage the on-boarding and up-levelling process for partners and deal registrations along with program administration such as deal approvals and protection. Crucial to this role is leading the partner planning process which develops mutual performance objectives, financial targets, and critical milestones that need to be achieved.

I also play the important role of coordinating efforts with Distributors. This includes maintaining relationships with existing distributors and onboarding new ones. Additionally, I ensure partner/distributor service and satisfaction levels remain high.

What are the key challenges a channel partner faces today within the IT segment?

Priya Prakash - Key challenges channel partners face today include -

Solution compliance and security - With the introduction of new regulations, channel partners must ensure that they comply with all relevant laws and regulations. Security today is becoming a major factor in many deployments and Channel Partners have to ensure that their offerings adhere to guidelines and strictures.

Partner saturation - With more and more channel partners entering the market, things are becoming saturated, making it increasingly difficult for channel partners to stand out from the crowd and differentiate their services.

Managing customer expectations - As technology evolves, customers’ expectations and demands change. Channel partners must continually adapt and evolve their services to meet the changing needs of their customers. There is a constant demand for skill upgrades which is a very costly task for any channel partner.

Keeping up with technology - Channel partners must keep up with the latest trends if they want to remain competitive, requiring continual professional development and training.

Compliance - With the introduction of new regulations, channel partners must ensure that they comply with all relevant laws and regulations.

Cybersecurity - With the ever-increasing cyber-attack threat, channel partners must invest in security measures to protect their customers’ data or offer solutions that ensure the same.

Delivering the projects on-time and within budget - Gone are the days of cost overruns and budget expansions. The key to survival today is to deliver withing budget, on-time and to beat expectations. Customers demand higher efficiency and superlative delivery. Channel partners have to manage lean and deliver effective.

Integrating new technologies and systems with existing infrastructure - Often existing infrastructure cannot be ripped and replaced. This puts the onus on the Channel Partner source and offer technologies that integrate new application components into an existing architecture. These can provide the impetus for driving collaboration between business and IT teams.

What are your key predictions for the new year with respect to ITOps?

Priya Prakash - My key predictions for IT Ops in the new year include the following-

• Continued automation of ITOps- Automation of ITOps will continue to grow and become more sophisticated with self-healing systems. Automation will enable ITOps teams to streamline processes, improve reliability, and reduce manual labor.
• Greater adoption of Edge Computing and IoT devices- Companies will continue to move computing architecture for faster response times and lower latency, and IoT will enable efficient data management and automation of processes.
• Increase in cloud migration- Cloud migration will continue to be a significant trend in 2023. Many organizations are migrating their IT operations to the cloud to leverage its agility, scalability, and cost savings.
• Increased focus on security- Security will be a top priority for ITOps teams in 2023. ITOps teams must ensure that their networks, systems, and applications are secure and compliant with industry standards and regulations.
• The rise of AIOps- Artificial Intelligence for IT Operations (AIOps) will become increasingly important in 2023. AIOps platforms can automate the monitoring, analysis, and response to IT events, allowing ITOps teams to detect and respond to problems quickly and efficiently proactively. Thus, helping predict problems ever before they occur.

My overall predictions for IT Ops for the coming year includes a strengthening of the current trends towards greater automation and the use of advanced technologies such as AI, ML and Cloud Computing to improve the performance and efficiency of IT operations resulting in increased efficiencies, bottom lines and competitive advantage.

--By Swaminathan B

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