There has been anecdotal evidence of channel partners losing business because they lacked impressive enough environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) credentials, and more evidence has emerged to show that fear is real.
A study from OVHcloud and the Cloud Industry Forum has revealed that a third of customers would walk away from a channel partner if it had a poor ESG strategy.
Sustainability has become a priority issue for many customers, with the research finding they want to work with partners that share a similar level of commitment.
“It’s good to see sustainability rising up the corporate agenda, despite the difficult times,” said David Devine, partner programme manager at OVHcloud. “As well as preserving our joint future, a thorough ESG strategy is both a genuine way for channel partners to reduce their own spend and move into a more advisory role with their customers.
“By embracing a more sustainable supply chain, the channel can also win more deals and give customers greater visibility of the carbon footprint of their technology vendors, fulfilling their need to measure scope 3 emissions,” he added.
Devine sounded a warning that ESG would only become increasingly important to customers: “Although sustainability isn’t yet on a par with security or cost in terms of procurement priorities, savvy channel partners should have one eye on the horizon and start to get their sustainability approach in order if they’re to reap the rewards in future.”
“By embracing a more sustainable supply chain, the channel can also win more deals and give customers greater visibility of the carbon footprint of their technology vendors, fulfilling their need to measure scope 3 emissions”
David Devine, OVHcloud
Beyond the ESG issues, there were positive findings from the research, with it clear that customers were largely happy with the delivery of cloud projects from partners. It also made it clear that dealing with complexity is a major issue that users want the channel to help them get on top of.
“A lot of customers have migrated certain applications to the cloud already: database, CRM [customer relationship management] and customer-facing apps are usually the first choices, but other parts of the business can be more difficult,” said Devine.
“To be truly successful, channel partners must show an in-depth understanding of customer needs and offer them a choice of solutions for supporting these needs. The right cloud for the right workload is crucial, for example, and that means having a broad range of providers in a partner’s portfolio, not to mention a commitment to open standards to make hybrid or multicloud infrastructure easier to manage in the long term,” he added.
Customers were specifically looking to the channel to help them overcome an in-house lack of skills and to manage the complexity of undergoing cloud migrations.
“This is a clear opportunity for the channel to step in and add value,” added Devine. “Helping customers to overcome both the skills gap and the complexity of the move to cloud can make you much more ‘sticky’ as a solutions provider, and help you work your way up the ladder to becoming a trusted advisor.”
