A recent UK partners survey conducted by Nuvias points to continued growth in 2022 where some of the remaining challenges partners are tackling.
- 62% is expected to grow 2-10%, 35% 10% in 2022
- 78% rate cyber security as their biggest growth potential
- 70% remote work has been found beneficial
- 40% say that remote work makes it difficult for them to run their business
Oaking, UK: 05/04/22 – Nuvias Group, a European high-value distributor, shared the results of its UK research, highlighting partners’ challenges and opportunities for 2022 and their pain points over the past year.
Growth trends and expectations
Partners expect the growth trend we saw in 2021 to continue into 2022, with 75% of respondents reporting growth of 2% to 10% in 2021 and 62% expecting the same in 2022.
Last year’s optimism was tempered by the reality, a quarter of those who expected more than 10% growth last year, achieved it. Expectations of growth seem to be normalizing, indicating a more balanced and grounded outlook this year. A more moderate 35% is expected to increase by more than 10% compared to last year’s 40%, probably due to the long-term effects of the epidemic, such as the global chip deficit, becoming apparent.
Technology demand for 2022
At the top of the cybersecurity chart, for the second year in a row, as the most promising area of growth, 78% of respondents identified it as the biggest opportunity, closely following cloud security at 56%.
Increasing cyber security could be encouraged by introducing new legislation to strengthen the UK’s resilience to cyber attacks – announced in January as part of the government’s £ 2.6 billion national cyber strategy.
‘Network visibility’ has emerged as a new growing segment, almost three times more frequent than last year (10% to 27%) – probably related to the host of rapidly expanding networks supporting the widespread adoption of hybrid work practices.
Hybrid Working
The shift to a different work model has divided opinions, relating to the deep-seated cultural perspective of the channel business, with many acknowledging the benefits of its challenges.
70% of respondents found distant work beneficial, 40% for productivity, 30% for strategic thinking. In contrast, 40% of partners point to hybrids acting as something that makes it harder for them to run their business. Among the negative factors cited were lack of supervision and long working hours, with 22% citing inability to see clients and colleagues in person as a source of frustration.
Differences of opinion may reflect differences in respondents’ different racial and employment roles. 25% of partners expected to switch to a new operating model (25%), with all the necessary tools and processes.
2022 Challenge: The role of distributors
Companies are looking to distributors for sales support, but in 2022, many are hoping they will meet specific challenges for the post-epidemic era.
Respondents indicated that they value distributor support in marketing and lead production activities (48%) – increasing importance in the age of hybrid work. Smooth running of the supply chain is also high on the list (38%), probably due to ongoing disruption is another item that cannot be approved.
2021 pain points
Comparing the responses of 2021 and 2022, it is clear how difficult it was to predict the effects of the epidemic. Challenges related to covid were selected as a disruptive element by just 13% in 2020, with the number increasing to 40% in 2022.
Adjusting to a new remote model is not a trivial challenge and, although supply chain disruption was expected, the amount – up to the semiconductor shortage – was difficult to estimate.
Lee Driscoll, MD UK and VP South Europe at Nuvias Group, commented: “2021 has always been a challenging year with global epidemics, but we have pulled together and made the most of our collective opportunities. It’s amazing to see that there was still strong growth over the last year. We’ve seen increasing customer demand for cyber security and we’ve strengthened our portfolio accordingly. It was not surprising to see the emergence of network visibility as a new top division in terms of the need for enhanced network management. We are fortunate to be able to work with leading vendors in this segment, such as Juniper and Riverbed.
Our priority is to help partners in the changed landscape sustain their revenue streams and business models by adapting to new customer needs and market conditions, providing service-oriented offers and efficiently designed solutions that protect business networks. “
Method
Nuvias voted for original reseller partners across the UK in December 2021 and January 2022. Respondents were mainly in sales and technical roles among tech VARs, managed service providers, system integrators and Internet service providers. Most of the respondents were from SMB, under 50 employees.
About the Nuvias Group
Nuvias Group is a fast-growing European next-generation distributor with a wide range of innovative services and solutions designed to secure customer success and accelerate partner and vendor growth. In collaboration with leading technology providers, we specialize in providing security, agility and manageability for client, network and cloud technology solutions through an ecosystem of highly skilled channel partners. Discover more at www.Nuvias.com.