Is 2016 The Year The Channel Gets Into The "Data Business"?
Over the past few months, I asked our contributors to share their predictions for 2016, and as their responses came back, regardless of technology or vertical, there was a common theme: data. Your clients are faced with collecting, managing, analyzing, interpreting, protecting — and even figuring out ownership — of vast amounts of data.
In his guest column Managed Speculation Provider: Predictions On What 2016 Holds For MSPs [managed services providers] for BSMinfo.com, Cam Roberson, director of the reseller channel at Beachhead Solutions, points out, “The means of accessing data have obviously proliferated as technology progresses, from network access to PCs to mobile devices and now the cloud, where just about any device can be used as a terminal to download any data and interact with any dashboard or solution.” Roberson says in addition to being interoperability experts and to advising clients on where data should reside and how long it should reside there, your clients are going to expect you to help them make sense of the data they are collecting.
One significant driver in adoption of data analytics solutions among your clients is the ability to gain insights into business operations. In his guest column Video Trends in 2016: Reaching For The Cloud(s), Steve Carney, senior director of product marketing and integration platforms for Tyco Security Products, writes, “Businesses are looking for an edge over their competitors with the added intelligence that can be provided by their security and other systems. The expectation from end users that all security systems and electronic systems in general will work together seamlessly to offer these added benefits is part of a trend that began in 2015. In 2016, the popularity of business intelligence capabilities will continue to be linked to end users’ expectations for all electronic systems, including security, to ‘do it all’ with simple-to-understand user interfaces.”
Wayne Arvidson, VP of surveillance and security solutions for Quantum, predicts, in IT Solutions Providers: 3 Opportunities In Video Surveillance In 2016, “The private sector and government alike will continue getting wise to the fact that video surveillance information is useful not just for security but for powering tomorrow’s business decisions. We’ll see more examples next year of organizations that have successfully monetized video surveillance data. From retail to shipping and logistics, more companies will discover the wealth hidden in their video data to do things like tighten supply chains and keep shelves stocked.”
Rich Shea, VP of sales for DataGravity, adds that companies will also seek insights from unstructured data to reduce their risk of cybercrime. “In 2015, the security climate became more perilous by the day, and many organizations are finally reaching their breaking points. They’re recognizing the scope and complexity of the data growth they’re really dealing with and realizing how sensitive information (not to mention key business insights) can be obscured as a result. In the coming year, the channel should expect more customers requesting — and so you should be prepared to provide — technologies that deliver on monitoring and understanding unstructured and structured data stores alike, as well as initiatives to increase visibility into that data and immediately identify vulnerable information before it can be breached or stolen,” he says.
Questions continue regarding who owns particular data, but Joel Doherty, global strategy and business development for Epson Cloud, observes the hype is fading. “As people start to understand how data in the cloud works on a more granular level, the question of who owns the data becomes moot,” he says, “People will start to appreciate how the data works, and this will build a lot more comfort around what data does — and does not — need to be protected, which will help adoption move along. If managed properly, data can be very meaningful to businesses if they understand some information can be shared (with software vendors, research firms, etc.) for their benefit.”
Jeff Yelton, VP and GM of Advanced Solutions at Ingram Micro, points out, however, for the channel, the answer to the data ownership question could result in facing new competition. In an interview he explained to me that issues will likely arise including who can use data and who can profit from it — questions that haven’t been answered and legal precedence that hasn’t been set yet.
Yelton stresses, though, there will be a place for VARs. “Most channel partners will not provide data analytics on their own. They will partner with specialists to provide business intelligence and then will deliver it to the customer in a format they can use,” he explains. As IT solutions providers contemplate the evolving channel and new business models, Yelton suggests VARs will find “real value in data and data analytics.”
In a presentation on Zebra Technologies’ motion analytics solution, Jill Stelfox, VP and general manager of location solutions, also pointed out IT solutions providers could find value in making data analytics a part of their businesses. Stelfox’s presentation detailed how the Zebra Technologies solution is used by the NFL to captures data from players, officials, first down markers — even the football — and from a command center, the data is “sliced” and sent — or sold — to users including broadcasters and a data analytics company. She commented that solutions providers may conclude, “I shouldn’t be in the hardware business. I should be in the data business.”