Nebula flexes services muscles with Verkada tie-up

Nebula is looking to strike more relationships to provide a wide range of services to support both resellers and customers.

The firm became a global premier services partner for Verkada last week, helping the physical security specialist with a range of options to support resellers keen to sell the products.

Richard Eglon, chief marketing officer at Nebula Global Services, said there was a gap between selling the products and providing onsite support, and that was where it was operating by surveying customer needs, scoping out the costs and then supporting swap-out requirements.

“We will do a survey for the end client on behalf of the reseller, scope the materials – in essence – off the back of that, and then they know they’re getting exactly what’s required to deliver the outcome. And then we go through, we install the product,” he said.

“We also attach a services track to it, so Verkada will do a return-to-manufacturer type of product swap out. That’s really simple, but in many cases, the people consuming this don’t have the necessary people on the ground to replace a camera or an access point,” he added. “What we’ve done is bundle all that together as an easy, SKU-based services.”

The Verkada partnership will be a model that Nebula follows, with further relationships struck where the channel player plugs the services gap.

Eglon said the market dynamics were working in their favour, and both vendors and resellers were looking for services support.

“What we’re seeing is a lot of UK-centric channel partners that are now going after more global opportunities. So, there’s a bit of a perfect storm in terms of our proposition going to market,” he said. “This is our first announcement, but we hope that more will be coming [soon].

“Emerging vendors are approaching the market a lot differently and a lot more focused on outcomes, and they’ve identified that they need service partners in order to maximise the opportunity,” he added.

Eglon said that the managed services market continues to evolve, but the channel needs to concentrate on ensuring customer needs are met.

“We’re now at this age of ‘as an outcome’. Nebula is as an outcome channel services player,” he added. “You’ve got to be a really good aggregator, and you’ve got to leverage your IT, your network, your own supply chain to find that best possible outcome.

“We’re in a challenging market where it’s not just about being different for the sake of it, nor is it about commoditising something to a price point match where service gets compromised. It’s about being an agile business and understanding where partnerships add real value.”