Exclusive Networks brings the curtain down on its festival

Exclusive Networks has brought down the curtain on its week-long festival of virtual events designed to support resellers.

The distributor has been running online sessions throughout the week covering topics around services, customer relationships and growth opportunities.

Over the past five days, the channel player has entertained with DJ sets, got resellers laughing with some comedy and held informative sessions on topics including digital transformation and lead generation.

Graham Jones, regional director UK&I at Exclusive Networks, opened the festival on Monday and wrapped up the event this afternoon, commenting on the changes the firm has seen developing in the market, accelerated by the coronavirus.

“The whole week has been about how can we help you. We feel there is an air bubble coming through Q2,” he said, adding that sessions designed to focus on planning on nurturing customer relationships would have supported the hundreds of resellers that tuned into each session.

One of the main sessions covered the increase in services, while others provided advice around how to gain new customers, which is particularly challenging in the current environment.

Jones advised resellers to have a plan and to work on the basics to ensure they have a solid proposition to put in front of customers: “What are your business basics and what do you do better than the competition?”

Jones said traditional sales methods of either straight sales or financed deals would continue, but alongside that it was clear customers were moving more to monthly subscriptions, consuming as a service and working with managed service providers.

Over the course of the week, Exclusive executives revealed it had plans to increase its own abilities to support an anything-as-a-service (XaaS) model and more details would emerge shortly.

“We see this as the start of filling the gaps in [a reseller’s] portfolio, if they have any, with services,” he said.

Jones also highlighted that its own revenues from software and licensing were increasing year-on-year and it was clear that the market was heading more in that direction: “There has been a big switch, which we think will accelerate.”

With the coronavirus causing ongoing lockdowns and social distancing measures, physical channel events have been replaced by virtual events. But with most in the channel engaging with a number of daily video calls, the challenge has been for those holding online meetings to get more inventive.

Jones said the initial levels of attendance and engagement indicated that partners had enjoyed tuning in for its festival over the course of the week.

“Engage with us and work with us,” he added. “We are here to help, and if you don’t sell anything then we don’t sell anything.”