Each passing year brings with it changes in the world. For businesses, it is important to adapt to these changing key trends and provide professional services that are ahead of the curve in the year ahead.
For channel partners, there has been an increasing trend towards playing a greater role in how companies operate. What was in the past a role that simply helped partners in online and tech-driven success, has now become a crucial service as they transition to online commerce speeds up.
Given this state of flux, there are a few trends that channel partners ought to focus on in order to support their partners in finding solutions to the new customer-care landscape. This article will go through a few of the most important predictions and trends to look out for in 2022.
The increasing prominence of serving overselling
Going forward, one of the biggest shifts that are anticipated to take place is the focus of the partner community to not just lead to sales. Rather, there will be an increased emphasis upon the end customer experience. This means that post-sale support, customer satisfaction, and client retention are all poised to play a larger role in future relationships. This is quite a departure from the traditional channel partners that have become the mainstay of the market where the primary focus is simply on growing sales.
The increasing processes that channel partners are involved in will also lead to a critical role played by new tools for channel partners. There will be a need to evolve skill sets and be able to work in conjunction with other departments of the company in order to maintain customers. For this, an enabling environment must be formed with suitable infrastructure to allow cross-department engagement within the partner companies. Moreover, suitable systems must be developed to manage workflow and lead to an efficient pipeline of ideas.
Expanded and Personalized channel training
In the next calendar year, channel leaders are recognizing the importance of broad-spectrum investment within channel partners. Due to the increased breadth of the role of a channel partner, there must be a similar expansion in the amount and quality of training offered to channel partners. This is crucial given the current state of the profession, where growth is being witnessed in the value of, as well as, expectations from channel partners.
Due to this, we foresee many channel leaders promoting the further adoption of personalized training courses which can help offer greater personalized support to the partners as they go through the program. Moreover, given the expanded role of the channel ecosystem, providing a broader intellectual base from which partners can learn from is certain to give one company the edge over another.
Moreover, we also predict evolution in the nature of the training program itself. Rather than something that is attended and then absorbed once. Successful training programs will be an ongoing process that will continue to test the abilities of partners to retain and practice what has been learned. This is in line with research conducted that suggests that humans only learn 10 percent of a skill that they have acquired. The only way to change this is to make sure that the person who has learned the skill is regularly practicing it.
A greater investment into personalized training programs will also prove to be a good investment as it can help access new vendors thanks to the greater scope of skills gained by partners. This has the potential of bringing in significant returns on investment and thus proving to be a smart decision for any channel leader that goes ahead with it.
This is especially true if training can lead to a greater number of tasks being automated through the use of technologies such as the cloud. We expect this to bring in significant increases to the efficiency and productivity of the average worker in channel programs over the next year.
Easing the transition into the digital age
Given recent events throughout the world, there has been an obvious increase in the role that technology plays within the business as well as society as a whole. This shift has been the primary driver of change within the channel community. Given this increased prominence of technology, businesses have had to expand the offerings on their online marketplaces, increase security, and look for innovative new ways of marketing in order to drive growth.
In this business context, it is imperative for channel programs to support their partner companies by helping navigate the shift to a greater online presence. There will be a few crucial components of this process. Firstly, the development of personalized streams of customer acquisition and retention that are in line with the businesses’ strategic vision and as well as cost limitations.
Secondly, there must be an increased emphasis on providing valuable services in an environment that is extremely dynamic and ever-evolving. A successful channel program must be on top of the new trends and ideas developing within the larger marketplace and must provide meaningful engagement so that the partner experiences growth in sales and forms critical relationships with customers.
Larger role of security offerings
As the digital transition continues in full force, there have been growing pains associated with this new reality as well. More and more there have been lapses in security that are leading to losses for both businesses as well as customers. Not only is this a major inconvenience in the smooth functioning of an organization, but it also leads to lost productivity, lost income, and in the worst cases, even lost customers.
Due to the increased prominence of such security issues, companies now have a greater appetite for technologies that can help secure their business by ensuring that workers and infrastructure are prevented from cyber threats. One of the biggest causes of concern, in fact, has been the continued propagation of ransomware throughout the online corporate world. This has the potential of significantly derailing a business and blocking workflow.
Moreover, critical customer and employee data can also be compromised. Due to this fact, channel programs now have the additional responsibility of helping find any such potential cyber weak spots. Moreover, it is also increasingly expected that channel partners will help ensure that there is an umbrella of cyber security around the company. This applies not only to the company’s own servers and employees but also to third-party cyber solutions such as the cloud.
Greater utilization of elastic work
Given the context of the world’s health situation at the time, there has been greater adoption of work from home and other remote working solutions. Moreover, even in states of normalcy, many firms and industries are making the switch o a hybrid model permanently. This reality is only now beginning to down on most programs, and the implications still remain somewhat unclear.
What is clear, however, is the need to adapt to these changing work landscapes by providing the right technologies in order for workers to meet their aims while still remaining efficient and being able to collaborate with fellow employees.
Moreover, the additional technology required to make all in-person work be compatible with remote and hybrid work is a tough nut to crack. In this regard, channel partners can provide invaluable services as well as insights to businesses regarding how to shift their processes online in a way that the business can still function as usual and without any serious disruption.
The new normal is still uncertain given the rapidly evolving situation of the world. What little certainty can be found, however, is in the fact that the new normal will be radically distinct from what the status quo used to be. Given this fact, it is crucial that channel partners make heed of these predictions and prepare themselves to evolve to changing trends in this field of service.
Increasing formation of online marketplaces
The never-ending quest to find new markets is one that vendors and most businesses are all too familiar with. Before the pandemic, this used to include a significant degree of in-person and physical acquisition of customers.
However, the changing nature of commerce has made online marketplaces a much more prominent feature of the retail and wholesale landscape. Given this fact, a lot of firms are investing in developing their own marketplaces for whatever product or niche they specialize in.
This is another aspect in which channel leaders will have to step up and take on additional responsibilities. They will need to help businesses set up their site and make use of the cloud in order to evolve to the needs of the day and form their own markets.
Moreover, the tools to make this shift happen are going to be another form of value that channel programs can provide to their partners. The trend towards online service is one that is taking place at an exceptional pace and will require innovative solutions and high-quality services given the ever-changing nature of the field.
Rising emphasis on influencer and referral programs
Continuing on the theme of the electronic transition, there is a trend towards utilizing online celebrities and content creators in the acquisition of new customers. This form of marketing has been growing as of late. However, the increased trends in engagement witnessed over the course of the pandemic has been a formidable form of marketing not just for newly emerging firms but also for traditional established ones.
In this regard, channel partners can provide invaluable services in helping find the right vendors to provide low-cost and valuable marketing services. Moreover, the use of technology paired with original ideas can help create some truly unique offerings in terms of a referral program. Such tools can align the interests of the influencer in question with the business itself and provide an excellent value proposition.
One of our key predictions for 2022 is to expect a significant increase in the market for such programs. Moreover, online influencer and referral programs will also serve as a key growth driver in sales, even more so than in the past few years. This will once more help expand the role of channel partners beyond simply bringing in sales and rather to act as a liaison between influencers on one hand and the business itself on the other.
The Bottom Line for channel partners
Having gone through these channel predictions for the upcoming year a few facts likely become extremely apparent. There are a few broad trends that can help form informed channel predictions about what to expect in the upcoming time period.
The pandemic has been a massive disruption which has led to a decrease in physical commerce as well as face-to-face work and interaction. This change has created new possibilities and led to the increased propagation of online activities. Thus it will be crucial for the channel ecosystem to service each partner in a way that can help obtain growth during these constantly evolving and dynamic times.
Due to this increased burden, there will be a larger responsibility on channel partners to rise up and meet the occasion. To do this, there will need to be a significant expansion of the skillsets possessed. Moreover, one of our most crucial channel predictions is the fact that this expansion of abilities will lead to greater funds being invested into training programs.
The nature of these training programs will also be very different as they will serve to foster a personalized experience and increase engagement within and between departments and companies. Moreover, there will be a continued emphasis on the utilization of online methods of outreach such as the referral program and the increased use of technology in advertising. Social media influences and public figures, will as always, play a leading role in this regard.
Finally, it is worth noting that these channel predictions can be used to gain a significant advantage over competitors by preparing the right framework for the necessary changes to be implemented without disrupting the workflow that is already in place.