Productivity and customer experience main areas of channel focus

The channel views productivity and customer-centricity as two of the most important attributes in the currency market.

The latest tranche of research into the partner landscape from Agilitas IT Solutions, Connect – Voice of the channel, follows on from other insights it has shared into the indirect world over the past couple of years.

The latest findings show that productivity ranked as the highest importance, followed by prioritising the customer experience, which many respondents felt had been improving.

Customer experience has risen up the charts as more partners have become aware that it’s an issue that they are being measured on and potentially could lose business it they fail to meet expectations.

The reason those factors scored so highly was a result of the shift by many in the channel to focus on services, with those two attributes high on the list of success criteria for managed service providers (MSPs).

When it came to working out what might be preventing greater improvements in productivity, the channel was aware that reasons included a reluctance to change, a lack of planning, and unsuitable software and systems.

Having identified the obstacles, many in the channel were already taking steps to rectify the situation, including allowing employees to make their own decisions, investing in the workforce, and recognising team members’ ideas through to implementation.

“The past two years have taught us to prioritise customer-centricity and how we measure productivity,” said Shaun Lynn, CEO of Agilitas. “For the UK technology channel, working productively also goes hand in hand with enhancing these experiences in a more competitive landscape, and those putting people at the forefront are best placed to create motivated teams that succeed and deliver.

“It is hugely positive to see decision-makers demonstrating such commitment to following a customer-centric approach, allowing their businesses to anticipate what channel partners want and create not only services and offerings that suit their current needs, but ones that are designed to benefit partners in years to come,” he added.

Agilitas has been charting channel optimism. Last April, it shared findings that showed that while the channel was not yet back to pre-pandemic levels of optimism, there are positive feelings around investment, culture and alliances.