By Gary Pickford, Managing Director
Southern Africa’s mid-market business sector comprises around 250,000 companies that employ 50 to 1,000 people—and these enterprises are looking for a new breed of IT solutions provider that can help them navigate a changing world. No longer do they simply need a reseller that can install printers and PCs and deliver break-fix services. They want a partner that can help them grow their businesses.
Today’s mid-market business leader is facing a complex and challenging landscape. They want to ensure that their hybrid workforces remain productive wherever they are; that they can meet the needs of a digital customer; that they're maximising efficiencies; and that they remain secure and compliant as cyber threats and regulations evolve.
Solution sales creates a skills gap
Easing the transition
These companies are looking towards their IT resellers to not only provide them with products and support. They are also asking them to provide them with strategic consulting as they evolve towards consumption-based usage of IT and seek to use technology as a competitive advantage. Yet with the limited access SMB Resellers have to advisors and experts, it can be challenging to meet these end-user demands.
Tarsus Distribution can support the channel as a value-added distributor. Tarsus Distribution invests significantly each year in training and vendor certification to create a pool of talent that can support resellers as they transition towards becoming true solutions providers. The company has also invested in a range of digital enablement tools to support the channel on this journey.
Even in these volatile times, there is a lot of opportunity for IT resellers in southern Africa’s mid-market. However, the needs of end-user companies are evolving fast and the channel is struggling to keep up. One of the biggest challenges our resellers report is the shortage of skills in the market and the difficulty of attracting and retaining talent.
Tarsus Distribution wants to support resellers with presales, business development and fulfilment skills to make it easy for them to provide solutions to their customers. We can offer them access to a range of cross-functional skills that can support complex enterprise computing needs that range from printing to infrastructure and cybersecurity.
Tarsus has created a digital platform to support resellers as they evolve their businesses. The Tarsus Partner Relationship Management portal (PRM) is a one-stop destination to find out about these SMB industry solutions, get information about SMB vendor training and certification, and even have an opportunity to source a business lead once a level of training and certification has been achieved. Tarsus leverages its data about resellers’ certifications and specialisations to matchmake them with specific end customer opportunities.
The goal is to help resellers stretch their resources as far as possible, given that their sales and presales teams are under enormous pressure. We have built a sales team that thinks deeply about how they can solve our partners’ and their customers’ problems instead of just trying to sell them a product or solution.
One of the ways we are seeing our business evolve is that the silos are disappearing. We are increasingly bringing skills from different product and technology units together to help the channel deliver a complete offering that addresses customers’ business needs. In so doing, we can help our channel partners position themselves as trusted advisors to their mid-market customers.
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