What has helped businesses to be more efficient and productive in today's rapidly changing world? The answer is definitely technological innovation. Businesses that do not embrace digital transformation are at a significant disadvantage. Today, technology is used to provide employees and customers with real-time information about products, services, and inventory levels. It helps to collaborate with partners and suppliers to streamline operations and improve efficiency. 

In a nutshell, technology helps organizations to do more with less.

The Annual Channel Leadership Survey (CLS) 2023 is an integrated report we are bringing out in the 24th Anniversary Special Issue in the month of September. This is the 16th year that we are publishing the annual survey, which is focused on the emerging technologies and contemporary product evolution (hardware/software/services) by technology vendors for addressing the needs and challenges of today’s customers. The VARs and partners in the country have shared their feedback in choosing their favourite OEMs through this survey. 

The 24th Anniversary issue also delves at length of how 200 Channel Partners are considered as the role model by the leading vendors in the country on their anticipation about tomorrow. Besides we have also considered various reports of Gartner, IDC, Marketandmarkets, Future Market Insights, Mordor Intelligence and others to understand the market landscape in 2022-23. CLS 2023 report will also make us understand who is ruling the roost.

After the release in the VARINDIA September 2023 issue, there will be another survey to find out the real leader in the Industry in terms of overall Sales performance, Service support, Product availability, Channel initiatives and Partner incentives. 

During the survey, certain critical issues came to light. Several channel partners raised issues pertaining to lack of information like technical, stock, dispatch information, and many basic and transactional information. To address these issues, companies have taken initiatives to create partner portals that will have all basic technical information, marketing information etc. 

There also arise situations when the channel hesitates to share customer data or more details as they don’t trust the sales person or organization as they fear of losing business to other channels. It therefore becomes critical for the vendor to create a transparent channel policy and a leakproof system which can eliminate this barrier.

Selecting and recruiting the right channel partner is the first step in realizing the channel potential. The vendors who fail to assess the partner’s potential capabilities end up incurring losses in revenue and new business expansion. On the basis of the channel feedback, OEMs continue to make improvements to processes to increase simplicity, besides showing deep commitment to growing revenue through the channel. 

The VARINDIA Channel Leadership Survey Report 2023 is: