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NOV 2018 | Vol. 23 No.7
THE BEST OF
2018
IN THIS ISSUE ADAM EDWARDS ALEX GAMBOTTO ANTHONY SMITH CHRIS GREATREX COLIN HU CRAIG BOVAIRD CRAIG FINN CRAIG SIMS EMILE NADER FELIX WONG FELIX WONG JASON HALL KEITH MASTERTON KEN BOAL PETER WILLIAMSON PHIL CAMERON RAMI RAHIM STEVEN DE COSTA TAMIKA SERCOMBE TONY HEYWOOD TRISTAN WARNER VIVEK TRIVEDI
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Contents
Nov 2018 VOLUME 23_ISSUE 07
Analysis 40
Delivering customer solutions from the core to the edge This exclusive ARN Roundtable — in association with NBN Co — explored how partners can deliver value through a changing technology landscape, examining how to cut through complexity and capitalise on emerging
40
Awards 4
ARN Innovation Awards 2018
Ingram Micro leader looks back on
on a memorable evening for the
the key learnings in a career filled
Australian channel, recognising the
with entrepreneurial spirit
of partners, start-ups, vendors, distributors and individuals
38
Hall of Fame: Alex Gambotto
54
Transforming through network, security and multi-cloud Juniper Networks CEO Rami Rahim sat down with IDG publications ARN, Computerworld and Network World during the vendor’s annual NXTWORK conference – both locally and globally
Hall of Fame: Felix Wong
ARN honoured the industry’s finest
achievements of a leading line-up
36
37
market opportunities
– to outline the vendor’s key priorities for 2019
58
Inside the world of Australia’s latest digital distributor
Hall of Fame: Ken Boal
As one of three co-founders of
Cisco chief explains the balancing
Telarus, Adam Edwards, had his
act of leadership and the attributes
firm idea set on creating a ‘digital
required for success
distributor’
US-based master agent distributor,
The Missing Link CEO outlines why hiring smart staff creates long-lasting success, favouring an approach centred around intelligent disobedience among workers
54
Columns 46
Capital Gains: Link Digital
52
Channel Chat with Huawei
64
Channel Confidential arnnet.com.au Nov 2018
02 Editorial AD INDEX
CELEBRATING THE BEST OF 2018
ARROW ESC ANZ AWS BLUECHIP BROTHER CYBER POWER I - LAN INGRAM MICRO ION UPS
3 61 OBC 39 IFC 53 45 IBC
JUNIPER NETWORKS MMT NETAPP TECH DATA TELSTRA VERITAS 3CX
57 59 3 63 47 63 CW
PRESIDENT AND PUBLISHER susan searle
susan_searle@idg.com.au
EDITORIAL editorial director: james henderson james_henderson@idg.com.au
head of news: samira sarraf samira_sarraf@idg.com.au
A
On a memorable evening in Sydney, ARN continued its tradition of celebrating and rewarding excellence across the Australian channel. For 12 years, our awards ceremony has provided a platform to showcase the leading partners, start-ups, distributors, vendors and individuals. This year signalled a change of direction, recognising ground-breaking innovation through the lens of the customer. In dictating the go-to-market strategies of partners, and the supply chain, changing business demands are redefining the notion of customer value. Today, customers look, think and buy differently, consuming technology in different ways through different providers. With innovation levels heightening, forward-thinking customers are seeking forward-thinking partners in a bid to create competitive advantage across the market. Consequently, the channel must evolve, through building, developing and constructing new IP, based on customercentric strategies and solutions. To capture this innovation, the revamped line-up honoured the channel across nine categories - Start-up; Partner Value; Emerging Technologies; Homegrown Innovators; Vendor Value; Distributor Value; Personal Innovation; Channel Choice and Hall of Fame. A Marketing Excellence award was also introduced, recognising the increasing importance of building brands and communicating with customers. Likewise, a newly launched Export award showcased the Australian-born
Nov 2018 arnnet.com.au
players with global ambitions from day one, while the Collaboration award acknowledged partner-to-partner collaboration in the channel. Under the revamped ARN Innovation Awards banner, a record haul of 370 nominations were submitted, spanning over 120 organisations across the channel. As a result, 2018 was the most competitive line-up in the history of the Awards. In front of more than 690 industry leaders, partners and start-ups showcased customer innovation; vendors outlined channel commitment; distributors demonstrated supply chain excellence and individuals shone as one. Three new leaders were also inducted into the ARN Hall of Fame, in the form of Alex Gambotto; Felix Wong and Ken Boal. Special thanks as always must go to a rapidly expanding judging panel comprising of over 170 channel influencers - who dedicated time and energy to selecting the winners. ARN congratulates all winners, finalists and nominees, and toasts the channel to a standout 2018.
journalist: julia talevski
julia_talevski@idg.com.au
journalist: eleanor dickinson
eleanor_dickinson@idg.com.au
graphic designer: damon taylor
damon@taylormadedesign.com.au
photographer: christine wong
info@christinewongphotography.com
ADVERTISING account director: cherry yumul cherry_yumul@idg.com.au (02) 9902 2756
account director: eduardo silva eduardo_silva@idg.com.au (02) 9902 2769
account manager: blayne reilly-sealy blayne_reilly-sealy@idg.com.au (02) 9902 2753
account manager: jackson raddysh jackson_raddysh@idg.com.au (02) 9902 2778
events manager: amy woodhead amy_woodhead@idg.com.au (02) 9902 2775
data and campaigns manager: nik gorbachev nik_gorbachev@idg.com.au (02) 9902 2784
marketing and events coordinator: christine wong christine_wong@idg.com.au (02) 9902 2737
idg founder: patrick j mcgovern Editorial published in ARN may not be reproduced in any form whatsoever without written permission. Copyright 2018, IDG Communications ARN is published by IDG Communications Pty Ltd PO Box 1753, North Sydney, NSW, 2059. Phone: (02) 9902 2700
JAMES HENDERSON EDITORIAL DIRECTOR – ARN
IDG is the publisher of ARN and its website (www.arnnet.com.au). If you choose to accept offers, enter competitions or complete surveys contained within them you may be required to provide information about yourself to IDG. IDG will use this information to provide you with products or services you have requested, and may supply your information to contractors that help IDG to do this. IDG may also use your information to inform you of other IDG publications, products, services and events, or give your information to organisations that are providing special prizes or offers and that are clearly associated with the offer. Unless you tell us not to, we may give your information to other organisations that may use it to inform you about other products, services or events or to give to other organisations that may use it for this purpose. To gain access to the information IDG holds about you, please contact IDG’s Privacy Officer at IDG Communications Pty Ltd, Level 10, 15 Blue St, North Sydney, NSW, 2060.
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04 ARN Innovation Awards 2018
ARN IN NO VAT I O N AWARDS 2 0 1 8
INNOVATION AWARDS 2018
AWARDS 2018
Finalists
INNOVATION
Partner Value THE PARTNER AWARDS RECOGNISE SMALL, MID-SIZED AND ENTERPRISE PROVIDERS FOR DELIVERING INNOVATION AND VALUE TO CUSTOMERS ACROSS AUSTRALIA.
Enterprise Partner
Customer Value
Data#3 InfoTrust Kiandra IT Optus Business Thomas Duryea Logicalis Versent
ABM Systems AC3 ASI Solutions Cirrus Networks Modis NeoData Tquila ANZ
Mid-Market Partner
Collaboration
ASI Solutions Brennan IT Datacom Nexon Asia Pacific Oreta The Missing Link Tecala Group
Exigo Tech Cloud Plus Oreta SixPivot
SMB Partner Cevo eNerds JCurve Solutions Surety IT Subnet
Nov 2018 arnnet.com.au
ARN Innovation Awards 2018
05
SP O NSORED BY
Jon Fox Channel director A/NZ, Sophos
Working with Australian partners is not part of our strategy, it is our strategy. Sophos’ mission is to be the best in the world at delivering innovative, simple and highly effective cyber security solutions to IT professionals and the channel that serves them. In fact, we are the only technology company that features the channel in its mission statement — demonstrating our commitment to the success of the partner community. Thanks to our work with the channel, we have tremendous global reach for our products, and can provide incredible local support for end-users. Our team in Australia work to empower our partner community, to motivate them, and to drive the best results alongside them. 2018 has been an amazing year for us, adding more than 1,000 Sophos certified individuals to the Sophos family — demonstrating the channel’s commitment to working with us. Secondly, we now have more than 200 partners in Australia and New Zealand (A/NZ) as part of our MSP Connect Flex program — showing that new routes to market are critical. And finally, we continue to grow. We now have 17,000 customers in A/NZ — proving that hard work and partnership pays off. We are incredibly fortunate to have such a dedicated and successful partner base, especially across A/NZ, which is why we are a proud sponsor of the Partner Value category at the ARN Innovation Awards in 2018. It is the partner community that continuously paves the way to success for Sophos. They are at the coalface with customers hand in hand with us, delivering innovation and value, each and every day. There is one theme that encapsulates the ARN Innovation Awards and that is partnership — how the industry empowers it, achieves it and celebrates it. It gave me and the wider Sophos team great pleasure to celebrate the success of partners, individuals and fellow vendors across Australia. Thank you to all our partners and congratulations to all the winners of the Partner Value awards — most of which Sophos is lucky to work with.
arnnet.com.au Nov 2018
06 ARN Innovation Awards 2018
INNOVATION AWARDS 2018
Partner Value
Enterprise Partner
Mid-Market
SMB
Winner / Data#3 Highly Commended / Thomas Duryea Logicalis
Winner / ASI Solutions Highly Commended / The Missing Link
Winner / eNerds
Why they won Data#3 wins this award in recognition of delivering innovative solutions to 4,867 enterprise customers during FY18, working with large organisations across public and private sectors. During this time, Data#3 also managed 158,000 support calls from customers and sold 71,500 technology products per working day.
What they do A leading Australian IT services and solutions provider, Data#3 is focused on helping enterprise customers solve business challenges using innovative technology solutions. Underpinned by world-leading vendor technologies, Data#3 provides an integrated array of solutions spanning cloud, mobility, security, data, analytics and IT lifecycle management.
Nov 2018 arnnet.com.au
Why they won ASI Solutions wins this award following 12 months of aggressive customer acquisition in the mid-market space, highlighted by the addition of brands such as Flower Power, Infrasecure and SGS Australia. The managed services division has also increased by over 112 per cent within the mid-market, in addition to strong growth across local government, education and corporate sectors.
What they do ASI Solutions has been a leading provider of innovative technology solutions to mid-market Australian private and public sector organisations for over 33 years. ASI Solutions helps customers manage IT and business challenges across a range of technologies, including big data, cloud services, mobility, security and disaster recovery.
Why they won eNerds wins this award for leveraging the integrated capabilities of Dropbox Business and Office 365 to meet the customer demands of the Sydney Film Festival. Key benefits include increased productivity, faster execution and reduced downtime, driven by a cost saving of more than $100,000.
What they do eNerds is a managed service provider focusing on small businesses between 10 and 250 employees across Australia. Established in 2000, eNerds has grown organically, employing a team of over 40 staff across key technologies, which includes managed support, consulting and projects, solutions, cloud, Internet and procurement.
ARN Innovation Awards 2018
Customer Value
Collaboration
Winner / ASI Solutions Highly Commended / AC3
Winner / Cloud Plus
Why they won
Why they won
ASI Solutions wins this award for customer service excellence in providing a more flexible environment with help desk facilities and a complete outsourced solution for its client’s public access network. This involved a range of devices, specialised government software, Microsoft Azure, servers, printers and network management.
Cloud Plus wins this award in recognition for close collaboration work with Thomas Duryea Logicalis. The two organisations have a history of successfully delivering ICT solutions to major corporate and government clients, achieving a high rate of client retention and an ongoing pipeline of opportunities.
What they do
Cloud Plus is 100 per cent channelfocused and delivers ICT solutions to clients ranging from SME to large enterprise and government businesses in conjunction with partners based on the company’s Cloud Solution Framework. This is comprised of a wide range of industry leading service elements, including data, security, hosting, backup, disaster recovery and voice.
ASI Solutions has been a leading provider of innovative technology solutions to mid-market Australian private and public sector organisations for over 33 years. ASI Solutions helps customers manage IT and business challenges across a range of technologies, including big data, cloud services, mobility, security and disaster recovery.
07
What they do
CHRISTINE WONG arnnet.com.au Nov 2018
08 ARN Innovation Awards 2018
ARN IN NO VAT I O N AWARDS 2 0 1 8
INNOVATION AWARDS 2018
AWARDS 2018
Finalists
INNOVATION
Nov 2018 arnnet.com.au
Start-up THE START-UP AWARDS RECOGNISE THE NEW AND EMERGING COMPANIES THAT HAVE CHANGED THE FACE OF THE TECH INDUSTRY IN AUSTRALIA, CHALLENGING THE STATUS QUO THROUGH NEW IDEAS AND INNOVATIONS.
Specialist
Company
GorillaStack Human Element IT InfraGuard Umlaut
Access4 Cevo Cloudten Industries GorillaStack Glüh LiveTiles SixPivot
Customer Value
Entrepreneur
InfoTrust Kablamo QPOD Solutions Solista Venn IT Solutions Vibrato
Jamie Warner – Invarosoft Murray Argus – HybridSkys Noel Allnutt – Solista Oliver Berger – GorillaStack Paul Glass – Nexion Networks Sachin Verma – Oreta Victoria Kluth – Araza
ARN Innovation Awards
09
SP O NSORED BY
Dan McLean Senior director of cloud sales A/NZ, VMware
VMware is proud to sponsor the Start-Up category at the ARN Innovation Awards in 2018. The partner community is an integral part of VMware’s business and we are delighted to be a returning sponsor for the 2018 awards. As we experience the evolution of digital transformation at pace, VMware’s partners are at the forefront of delivering innovative solutions to help customers solve business challenges and shape the direction of industries. It’s exciting to witness so many creative, entrepreneurial organisations emerging in the local partner community who have established thriving businesses by identifying the positive impact they can have for customers of all sizes, across all sectors. It may be customers who are moving to a hybrid cloud environment; businesses who want to maximise the benefits of IoT, or organisations keen to examine where AI and machine learning can take them. Our goal is to enable our partners to develop and deliver valuable technology innovation to drive customer success. VMware is thrilled that new members of our diverse partner network continue to rise to prominence in the industry, thanks to their ingenuity, originality and tenacity. We work together with them proudly to help provide a robust digital foundation upon which they can build game-changing solutions for customers. We’re grateful for the opportunity to collaborate with so many talented people in our partner community and we look forward to continuing to grow new and existing partner relationships in 2019 and beyond.
arnnet.com.au Nov 2018
10 ARN Innovation Awards 2018
INNOVATION AWARDS 2018
Start-up
Specialist
Customer Value
Winner / GorillaStack
Winner / Solista Highly Commended / InfoTrust
Why they won GorillaStack wins this award for the creation of an enterprise grade tool designed with GUI, APIs and Slack integration. Enterprises adopted this offering with granular role based access and SAML. Fully flexible, the tool allows any trigger from the cloud or 3rd party software to kick off a workflow with several actions including back-up, scale up, scale down and storage removal.
What they do GorillaStack is an innovative platform that enables organisations to action cloud data automatically and to optimise environments by improving elasticity and reducing redundancy in storage and compute, resulting in typical savings of 15-60 per cent on infrastructure spend. Through using GorillaStack’s software, organisations are automating back-up, compliance and disaster recovery.
Nov 2018 arnnet.com.au
Why they won Solista wins this award in recognition of their project work with education provider, Navitas. The project used both CrowdStrike and Splunk to meet the customer’s requirements in providing a proactive cyber resilience strategy.
What they do Solista delivers the next generation of data infrastructure, cloud platforms and cyber security solutions to mid-market and enterprise level customers across Australia. Founded with the vision of bringing new and emerging technologies to market, Solista’s mission is to drive digital innovation, optimisation and give their clients a competitive edge in the market.
ARN Innovation Awards 2018
Company
Entrepreneur
Winner / GorillaStack Highly Commended / SixPivot
Winner / Victoria Kluth - Araza
Why they won
11
Why they won
GorillaStack wins this award for working with Amazon Web Services to support the migration and subsequent expansion of a national public infrastructure provider. GorillaStack automated the scaling and cycling of infrastructure and within three months, the customer’s bill had halved resulting in further migration and expanded usage.
Victoria wins this award for founding Araza, a technology consulting organisation that specialises in cloud and digital transformation systems integration. In the past three years, Kluth has also started a further three new technology companies, Indigo, Open Sesame and 2186.
What they do
Victoria is managing director and founder of Araza, a technology consulting organisation that specialises in cloud and digital transformation systems integration. This covers a wide range of services, including understanding emerging technologies to assist clients with updating legacy systems.
GorillaStack is an innovative platform that enables organisations to action cloud data automatically and to optimise environments by improving elasticity and reducing redundancy in storage and compute resulting in typical savings of 15-60 per cent on infrastructure spend. Through using GorillaStack’s software, organisations are automating back-up, compliance and disaster recovery.
What they do
CHRISTINE WONG arnnet.com.au Nov 2018
12 ARN Innovation Awards 2018
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INNOVATION AWARDS 2018
AWARDS 2018
Finalists
INNOVATION
Nov 2018 arnnet.com.au
Homegrown Innovators THE HOMEGROWN INNOVATORS AWARDS RECOGNISE AUSTRALIAN MADE EXCELLENCE IN THE TECHNOLOGY MARKET.
Service Provider
Export
Artis Group bksb Australia Best Technology Services Cloud Plus Hosted Network Nexon Asia Pacific Tecala Group
GorillaStack Kiandra IT LiveTiles
ISV Huntsman Security iasset.com Kiandra IT Nitro NuaMedia Stax SixPivot
ARN Innovation Awards 2018
13
SP O NSORED BY
Tara Ridley Director of partner organisation A/NZ, Cisco
Cisco is proud to sponsor the Homegrown Innovators category at the ARN Innovation Awards in 2018. Our global strategy, driven by our local team across Australia and New Zealand, includes a strong focus on our partners. And it’s an exciting time for the partner community. As we know, Australia is in the midst of a major economic, social and political transition driven by global competition, rapidly expanding digital platforms and technological innovation. Cisco has developed a national engagement strategy to help play our part in supporting Australia’s digital transition and to have a voice in the public policy challenges we face relating to innovation, skills, education and building resilient communities. With three pillars which frame how we partner and invest to support the digital transformation of Australia, the Innovation Economy, Human Capital and Healthy Communities, we see our role to contribute to growth, locally. Our partners are key to our business, and we recognise the value they add across the lifecycle of any technology offer. And with changing customer expectations and the market, it’s forcing us, with our partners, to rethink business models to consider digitisation. The market is changing at rapid speed and there are some amazing opportunities in front of us, including how we demonstrate our capability to deliver the secure intelligent platform for digital business to our customers. As a representative of a global company founded outside of Australia, I am proud that we are sponsoring homegrown innovators, as they play a significant role in supporting our great nation’s digital transition.
arnnet.com.au Nov 2018
14 ARN Innovation Awards 2018
INNOVATION AWARDS 2018
Homegrown Innovators
Service Provider
ISV
Winner / Tecala Group Highly Commended / Cloud Plus
Winner / Kiandra IT Highly Commended / iasset.com
Why they won Tecala Group wins this award for leveraging packaged IP across a range of as-a-service offerings, now providing more than 95 per cent of customer requirements through a pay per user, per month model. During the three years that Tecala Group has worked with Employsure, they have helped the business grow from having 5,000 customers to over 20,000 customers, providing a technological foundation amid a global launch and an increase of employees from 150 to over 700 people.
What they do Founded in 1997, Tecala Group delivers over 80 per cent of business working with mid-market Australian companies. Tecala Group’s offering incorporates strategic consulting and technology roadmaps, professional services delivery capability, public and private cloud services, end-to-end managed services and communications services.
Nov 2018 arnnet.com.au
Why they won Kiandra wins this award for working with Oliver Hume to transform a traditional land reservation process into a marketfirst digital product. The Oliver Hume Online Payment System is fast, simple, scalable and highly secure, with plans to roll this new technology out as an additional service in the future.
What they do Kiandra is a full-service Australian IT company, delivering smart, business-critical software, technology and security solutions for organisations of every size for 23 years. Kiandra has provided solutions to over 150 small, medium and large organisations spanning 40 industries, across Australia and the globe.
ARN Innovation Awards 2018
15
Tara Ridley of Cisco presents Export award, LiveTiles was unable to attend on the evening.
Export Winner / LiveTiles
Why they won LiveTiles wins this award in recognition of its suite of tools that help provide engaging, mobile-friendly corporate intranets, pages or portals without a line of code deployed over Microsoft SharePoint, Office 365 or the cloud. Across Australia, and the world, more than 500 customers are using LiveTiles to help build engaging custom experiences.
What they do LiveTiles is an Australian company, headquartered in New York with offices around the world. Deploying over SharePoint, Office 365 or the cloud, LiveTiles offers cloud-based intelligent workplace software for the commercial, government and education markets.
CHRISTINE WONG arnnet.com.au Nov 2018
16 ARN Innovation Awards 2018
ARN IN NO VAT I O N AWARDS 2 0 1 8
INNOVATION AWARDS 2018
AWARDS 2018
Finalists
INNOVATION
Nov 2018 arnnet.com.au
Emerging Technologies THE EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES AWARDS RECOGNISE PARTNERS PROVIDING CUSTOMER VALUE THROUGH NEW TECHNOLOGIES IN THE MARKET, SPANNING CLOUD, DIGITAL, IOT AND SMART SOLUTIONS.
Cloud
Digital Transformation
Cloud Plus Data#3 Fujitsu Kablamo Nuamedia Oreta PrimeQ
Bulletproof Ignia, an Insight Company Lookup.com Outcomex Olikka TechSpecialist Vault Cloud
Smart Technology
Internet of Things
Araza Fujitsu Modis The Data Exchange Network Ultimo Digital Technologies
Fujitsu IT Easy Outcomex Smartsensor Ultimo Digital Technologies
ARN Innovation Awards 2018
17
SP O NSORED BY
Shant Soghomonian General manager of channel sales A/NZ, Dell EMC
More than 80 per cent of business leaders believe that by 2030, emerging technologies such as cloud, mobile, artificial intelligence and IoT will allow humans and machines to work together according to Dell EMC’s Realise 2030 study. In fact, in a quarter of businesses, they already do. Consequently, the ARN Innovation Awards is the perfect platform to celebrate the achievements of channel communities that have joint-effort with businesses in driving the modern IT transformation. It’s never been more important for Australian businesses to think about how these technologies can be integrated into their day-to-day operations. As the business advisors to customers, the channel plays a critical role in using technology to overcome customer challenges and realise their strategic goals. We are very proud that over the last financial year, more than 20,000 global Dell EMC partners earned 100,000 credentials across a multitude of technology disciplines. It’s great knowing that the Dell EMC Partner Program is enabling our channel partners to have complex conversations with their customers and address their needs with our technologies. This is certainly true on the ground here in Australia. We’ve witnessed many great joint customer success stories over the past year and we thank our partners for their great work. The ARN Innovation Awards is the highlight of the channel calendar. Not only do we get to catch up with our peers, but we recognise all the great work that happens within our industry. From personal achievements to amazing team work, the night is full of examples of how technology is changing business. This year, Dell EMC sponsored the Emerging Technologies category. By recognising how partners are using cloud, smart technology, digital transformation and IoT to achieve great outcomes for their customers, we will help each other learn and constantly search out new ways to improve. We look forward to seeing what can be achieved over the next year.
arnnet.com.au Nov 2018
18 ARN Innovation Awards 2018
INNOVATION AWARDS 2018
Emerging Technologies
Cloud
Smart Technology
Winner / Data#3 Highly Commended / Cloud Plus
Winner / Fujitsu
Why they won Data#3 wins this award in recognition of the public cloud-based solution it proposed for a major public infrastructure project for South East Queensland. Using Microsoft technologies, Data#3 set up the solution quickly and securely, providing enhanced collaboration tools, while enabling the authority to scale up or down as required, at a predictable cost.
What they do A leading Australian IT services and solutions provider, Data#3 is focused on helping enterprise customers solve business challenges using innovative technology solutions. Underpinned by world-leading vendor technologies, Data#3 provides an integrated array of solutions spanning cloud, mobility, security, data, analytics and IT lifecycle management.
Nov 2018 arnnet.com.au
Why they won Fujitsu wins the award in recognition of its Digital Owl initiative that uses drones, video analytics and high performance computing to help identify and locate threatened species of plants in NSW bushland. The project has been trialled with the NSW Office of Environment and Heritage in a remote section of bushland at Mt Dangar, NSW and has been successful in identifying the location of two endangered plant species.
What they do Fujitsu is a leading service provider of business, information technology and communications solutions. As one of the largest ICT companies locally, Fujitsu partners with customers to consult, design, build, operate and support business solutions.
ARN Innovation Awards 2018
Digital Transformation
Internet of Things
Winner / Bulletproof Highly Commended / Outcomex
Winner / Smartsensor
Why they won
19
Why they won
Bulletproof wins this award based on the digital transformation work it conducted for Spatial Services, a division of the NSW Department of Finance, Service and Innovation. The project provided a reliable solution that streamlined data ingest and validation, an audit trail and reduced errors, and provided lower infrastructure costs.
Smartsensor wins this award in recognition for its work in being an end-to-end waste platform provider and building their own devices, platform and apps, bringing the latest in IoT communications technology and sensing to the waste management industry.
What they do
Smartsensor is transforming the waste industry, one bin a time. With a vision of a world without waste, Smartsensor is integrating technology into one of the planet’s most inefficient and resource intensive industries, waste management.
Bulletproof is a leading cloud services provider in Australia and New Zealand and trusted partner to over 700 organisations. Bulletproof simplifies complex technology and enables rapid transformation for businesses of all sizes.
What they do
CHRISTINE WONG arnnet.com.au Nov 2018
20 ARN Innovation Awards 2018
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INNOVATION AWARDS 2018
AWARDS 2018
Finalists
INNOVATION
Vendor Value THE VENDOR AWARDS RECOGNISE VENDORS HELPING PARTNERS DELIVER INNOVATIVE SOLUTIONS TO CUSTOMERS, THROUGH LEADING-EDGE TECHNOLOGY AND CHANNEL-CENTRIC PROGRAMS.
Hardware
Networking
Brother Dell EMCÂ Cisco HP Hewlett Packard Enterprise IBM Lenovo
Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company Big Switch Networks Cisco Extreme Networks Riverbed Technology VMware
Specialist
Software
APC by Schneider Electric Datto Commvault F5 Networks Pure Storage
3CX ConnectWise MuleSoft Purple WiFi VMware Veeam
Security Cylance ForeScout Technologies FireEye Kaspersky Lab Mimecast Malwarebytes Sophos Symantec Tenable WatchGuard Technologies
Nov 2018 arnnet.com.au
Cloud Amazon Web Services Cisco StorageCraft
ARN Innovation Awards 2018
21
SP O NSORED BY
Nick Verykios Managing director, Arrow ECS ANZ
Arrow ECS ANZ is proud to sponsor the Vendor Value category at the ARN Innovation Awards in 2018. This is an important category that rightly recognises high-achieving technology organisations who invest in the channel for business excellence and channel growth. At Arrow, we believe that vendors who succeed and enhance our industry, professionally and ethically should be celebrated and recognised. Arrow wouldn’t exist without the channel ecosystem including the vendors who embrace and recognise the value of it. We employ 190 people across Australia and New Zealand (A/NZ) and we continue to recruit more people to support our growth, which is testament to the value we provide, the strength of the channel and the relationships with the people within it. The nature of our industry demands a unique model to deliver advanced and emerging technologies to the A/NZ markets, which is precisely what the channel provides; each contributor playing a crucial role in delivering and maintaining the exceptionally high standards that customers demand. Supporting the channel with our Five Years Out strategy allows partners and vendors to confidently invest in the future of this industry which forms the heart and soul of everything we do. It is this very premise that sets Arrow apart. We listen to the channel and respond to the needs of our partners by providing personalised value-added services and solutions that are relevant to their business, from pre-sales and post-sales services, to go-to-market strategies comprising business development to marketing and sales execution. Providing a solution is important but enabling the use of that solution is invaluable.
arnnet.com.au Nov 2018
22 ARN Innovation Awards 2018
INNOVATION AWARDS 2018
Vendor Value
Hardware
Software
Security
Winner / Dell EMC Highly Commended / Hewlett Packard
Winner / VMware Highly Commended / Veeam
Winner / Sophos Highly Commended / Cylance
Enterprise
Why they won Dell EMC wins this award for increasing product sales through the channel by 23 per cent year-onyear, alongside an increase of partner satisfaction by 46 per cent compared to 2017. In addition to increased channel headcount, Dell EMC has also rolled out a new incentives program — MYrewards — to reward partner sales and technical teams across Australia.
What they do Dell EMC is a global leader in IT storage and technology-as-a-service and drives the rapid adoption and optimisation of digital technologies. Dell EMC’s mission is to enable mid-market and enterprise customers’ digital transformation through trusted hybrid-cloud and big-data solutions, built upon a modern data centre infrastructure.
Nov 2018 arnnet.com.au
Why they won VMware wins this award for driving increased sales and revenue through the Australian channel, spanning vSAN and NSX technologies. Meanwhile, strong growth was also recorded through the VMware Cloud Provider Program (VCPP), with bookings increasing more than 30 per cent year-on-year.
What they do VMware’s product suite has grown vastly since the early days of virtualisation, with the company integrating its technologies for storage, compute and networking to help customers build truly softwaredefined data centres.
Why they won Sophos wins this award for adopting a market approach which is centred around being 100 per cent channel driven. Backed by an improved partner program, key partner initiatives include MSP Connect Flex, which offers a flexible billing model, designed to reward managed service providers while boosting profitability through the channel.
What they do Sophos’ mission is to be the best in the world at delivering complete IT cyber security to small and mid-market enterprises, as well as the channel that serves them. As modern networks and security threats continue to become more complex and sophisticated, Sophos is focused on ensuring IT security remains simple, reliable, and effective.
ARN Innovation Awards 2018
Specialist
Cloud
Winner / Datto Highly Commended / APC by Schneider Electric
Winner / Amazon Web Services
Why they won Datto wins this award following a year of strong growth through the channel, driven by increased partner acquisition and improved revenue figures locally. During the second quarter of 2018, Datto hit a quarterly record of 210 new buying partners in Australia and New Zealand, more than the entire Asia Pacific business the previous year.
What they do
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Why they won Amazon Web Services wins this award for continuing to grow cloud capabilities across Australia, leveraging the channel to serve key enterprise customers. Through Arq Group, ANZ Bank utilised AWS solutions to rapidly deploy innovation, including Polli, a chatbot using the Amazon Lex conversational interface service.
What they do
Datto is a provider of data protection and business continuity solutions for over 500,000 businesses around the world. Datto’s integrated suite of services also include cloud-to-cloud back-up services for leading SaaS applications and network continuity solutions.
Amazon Web Services strives to be Australia’s most customer obsessed and partner-centric business. Working with its extensive Amazon Partner Network, with born-in-the-cloud and independent software vendors, AWS helps customers from all industries remediate technical debt and drive innovation, to take their business global in minutes.
Networking
Telecommunications
Winner / Cisco Highly Commended / Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company
Winner / Telstra
Why they won Cisco wins this award for developing and delivering several programs both physically and virtually across Australia. Key initiatives include the Black Belt program, which provides a streamlined set of training for partners across different architectures for both pre-and post sales teams, spanning more than 100 training courses locally.
What they do Cisco helps customers and partners transform their businesses through various market transitions by constantly evolving the network for greater demands for over 30 years. Through Cisco’s Intuitive Network, Cisco takes a software-delivered approach that allows customers to automate and assure services across their campus, WAN and branch networks.
Why they won Telstra wins this award in recognition of an evolving channel partner program in Australia, which has transformed from a mobility-centric business to a fully serviced technology division that serves key domains including data and IP, cloud and unified communications. Telstra delivered 20 per cent yearon-year growth in channel revenue, driven by over 300 partners across metro and regional Australia.
What they do Telstra is a leading telecommunications and technology company in Australia, offering a full range of communications services and competing in all telecommunications markets. CHRISTINE WONG arnnet.com.au Nov 2018
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INNOVATION AWARDS 2018
AWARDS 2018
Finalists
INNOVATION
Nov 2018 arnnet.com.au
Distributor Value THE DISTRIBUTOR AWARDS RECOGNISE DISTRIBUTORS INNOVATING THROUGH THE SUPPLY CHAIN, PROVIDING VALUE TO VENDORS AND PARTNERS ACROSS THE CHANNEL.
Specialist
Hardware
ADDCOM Contact Solutions DNA Connect Exclusive Networks SecureSoft Transition Systems
ADDCOM Contact Solutions CommsPlus Dicker Data Ingram Micro Westcon-Comstor
Software
Homegrown
Dicker Data Ingram Micro Nextgen Rhipe Tech Data
Dicker Data DNA Connect Rhipe SecureSoft VExpress
ARN Innovation Awards 2018
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SP O NSORED BY
Stephen Bovis Managing director, Hewlett Packard Enterprise
Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) is proud to sponsor the Distributor Value category at the ARN Innovation Awards in 2018. HPE has been a long-time supporter of the reseller channel, and distribution plays a major role. Our association with distributors allows us to provide our solutions to the channel effectively and efficiently, and we are grateful for their efforts in supporting our business. HPE would not be as successful as we have been if it were not for the efforts of our reseller and distributor partners. We have built our business on ensuring a strong relationship and supporting the channel in a variety of proactive ways to ensure we can be mutually successful. The channel plays an extremely important role in the HPE go-tomarket strategy in Australia. Our products and services, combined with the value-add that the channel provides, is a compelling and powerful partnership. As a result, together, we have helped many Australian small to medium businesses, as well as large enterprise companies, bring to life creative solutions for their customers. The future is exciting, and together with the channel, we will continue to build on the excellence that exists in today’s marketplace.
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INNOVATION AWARDS 2018
Distributor Value
Homegrown
Specialist
Winner / Dicker Data
Winner / Exclusive Networks Highly Commended / DNA Connect
Why they won Dicker Data wins this award for providing value to its vendors through the enablement of over 1,000 partners in 2017. With a global directive to deploy a new licensing mechanism in the local market, Dicker Data partnered with a vendor to find a solution that would allow their partners to sell this new product online to end-users. The solution had to be completely automated to enable the end-user to place an order at any time of the day with their partner and have their licenses delivered to them within 10 minutes of completing their purchase. Dicker Data found, built and implemented a solution which was featured on the global stage for Autodesk.
What they do Dicker Data is Australia’s largest locally owned and operated hybrid technology distributor. Representing all major global tierone hardware vendors, Dicker Data holds the majority market share across device, networking, peripheral, server and storage technologies in the Australian market. Effectively and efficiently servicing both volume and value markets, Dicker Data has designed a unique model that delivers value-added distribution at scale, enabling partners of all varieties to benefit from the organisation’s services.
Nov 2018 arnnet.com.au
Why they won Exclusive Networks wins this award for executing on a partner-first mantra across the local channel. The distributor has created agile spaces allowing partners to easily access all vendor related information to help define, develop and drive new market opportunities, spanning sales, technical support and education. Exclusive Networks also launched Dare to Disrupt, a campaign that aims to provide marketing support to partners on every level.
What they do Exclusive Networks is a value-added services and technologies distributor specialising in cyber and cloud transformation. As a specialist distributor, Exclusive Networks is focused on market penetration and acceleration in collaboration with the best IT security vendors that are ready to meet the challenges of super-connected businesses.
ARN Innovation Awards 2018
Hardware
Software
Winner / Dicker Data Highly Commended / Ingram Micro
Winner / Rhipe Highly Commended / Nextgen
Why they won
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Why they won
Dicker Data wins this award for providing enhanced levels of sales, pre-sales technical and solution architecture resources to help partners deliver hardware solutions to endusers. Offered as a complimentary value-added service, these resources helped partners create offerings that solve customer issues utilising best practice, market-leading technology. Dicker Data also leveraged a dedicated services division to deliver partner value through configuration and staging, working with more than 1,000 technology providers across Australia.
Rhipe wins this award for providing market-leading technical partner enablement and delivering digital transformation and customer-lifecycle programs through its PRISM marketplace. Rhipe’s marketing-as-a-service offering also delivers digital and telemarketing capabilities to drive cloud demand, amplify partner brands and provide new opportunities and pipeline. During the past 12 months, Rhipe ran 20 Market Maker value-proposition workshops with top partners, helping create go-to-market strategies through the channel.
What they do
What they do
Dicker Data is Australia’s largest locally owned and operated hybrid technology distributor. Representing all major global tierone hardware vendors, Dicker Data holds the majority market share across device, networking, peripheral, server and storage technologies in the Australian market. Effectively and efficiently servicing both volume and value markets, Dicker Data has designed a unique model that delivers value-added distribution at scale, enabling partners of all varieties to benefit from the organisation’s services.
As a cloud-first, channel-first distributor, Rhipe’s focus is on helping resellers capitalise on the growth of cloud, without incurring the costs, complexities and uncertainties that can be associated with selling cloud. Rhipe’s subscription licensing business includes a portfolio of cloud licensing options, with complementary software from vendors including VMware, Microsoft, Symantec, Citrix, IBM, Acronis, RedHat, Trend Micro, Veeam, Sinefa, Skykick and DocuSign.
CHRISTINE WONG arnnet.com.au Nov 2018
28 ARN Innovation Awards 2018
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INNOVATION AWARDS 2018
AWARDS 2018
Finalists
INNOVATION
Personal Innovation THE PERSONAL INNOVATION AWARDS RECOGNISE OUTSTANDING INDIVIDUALS WHO CONTRIBUTE TO THEIR COMPANY’S SUCCESS IN THE CHANNEL.
Channel Excellence
Marketing Excellence
Beau Alderson APC by Schneider Electric Belinda Jurisic Veeam Chris Nixon NetApp Jason Concepcion HP Lynn Nicol Dell EMC Neels du Plooy VMware Roger Rivera Arrow ECS ANZ Sam Laverty Symantec Tanya Hovagimian Sophos Tayler Feigl Datto
Amanda Har Insight Christian Petrocco Trend Micro Joanne Pei Lee Wong LogRhythm Kristal Jamieson Sophos Kathleen Grahame StorageCraft Kate Massey JCurve Solutions Lisa Stockwell Arrow ECS ANZ Marie Scott Datto
Technical Excellence
Sales Excellence
Jay Isikli Datto Karl Thomson StorageCraft Karen Cheng Araza Michael Long Arrow ECS ANZ Nathan Steiner Veeam Nilram Azadpeyma Cisco Phoebe Goh NetApp Robert Reynolds Exclusive Networks
Aurelie Viger Vibrato Brigitte Auguste Araza Gina Anderson Green Light Matthew Barry IT Easy Niten Devalia Exigo Tech Sam Gilchrist eNerds Tom Allen Solista
Management Excellence Chris Hewlett HP Damian Zammit Thomas Duryea Logicalis Ian Smith Optus James Bergl Datto Josh Sewell Insight Jason Duerden Cylance Jules Rumsey Cloud Plus Marina Brook StorageCraft Pennie Stevens Dicker Data
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ARN Innovation Awards 2018
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SP O NSORED BY
David Dicker CEO, Dicker Data
The people are what make the Australian IT industry such an outstanding place to work. As an Australian company that’s 100 per cent built on Australian talent, Dicker Data understands the importance of celebrating the contributions our people make by providing a platform for industry-wide recognition. We’re proud to be sponsoring the Personal Innovation category at the ARN Innovation Awards in 2018 which recognise the outstanding individuals from our channel ecosystem who go above and beyond for their customers each and every day. On behalf of the team at Dicker Data, I’d like to congratulate all the companies and individuals who have been recognised as finalists and winners.
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30 ARN Innovation Awards 2018
INNOVATION AWARDS 2018
Personal Innovation
Channel Excellence
Technical Excellence
Management Excellence
Winner / Belinda Jurisic (Veeam)
Winner / Phoebe Goh (NetApp)
Winner / James Bergl (Datto) Highly Commended / Chris Hewlett (HP)
Why they won Belinda wins this award for her outstanding dedication and focus on the channel community. During the past year, she has driven key program initiatives that have resulted in enhancing the growth and profit for Veeam partners.
What they do Belinda is channel sales manager across Australia and New Zealand at Veeam. Belinda is responsible for a team of 20 and drives Veeam’s growth across all market segments with channel partners, while leveraging the resell agreements in place with Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Cisco and NetApp.
Nov 2018 arnnet.com.au
Why they won
Why they won
Phoebe wins this award for her ability to deliver cloud and hybrid cloud data solutions, alongside participating in delivering talks at events such as Container Camp 2018 and Girl Geeks Sydney, as well as hosting the NetApp A/ NZ ‘Geek Out’ monthly webinar.
James wins this award in recognition of establishing and growing Datto’s footprint in the A/NZ market, attracting more than 1000 channel partners and servicing more than 8000 businesses during his tenure.
What they do
James is regional director of Asia Pacific at Datto. Following the Datto and Autotask merger in late 2017, James was selected to build and lead the combined business across the region, which includes a team of 50 employees and more than 1000 channel partners.
Phoebe is a cloud architect at NetApp. Phoebe provides technical and pre-sales support to customers, partners and NetApp sales teams across Australia and New Zealand for the NetApp Cloud Data Services products.
What they do
ARN Innovation Awards 2018
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Victoria Kluth of Araza accepting the award on Brigitte’s behalf
Marketing Excellence
Sales Excellence
Winner / Lisa Stockwell (Arrow ECS ANZ)
Winner / Brigitte Auguste (Araza) Highly Commended / Tom Allen (Solista)
Why they won Lisa wins this award in recognition for her successful effort in launching Arrow ECS ANZ’s IoT strategy in the local market and educating the channel in this sector. Lisa’s successful marketing campaigns have resulted in new revenue opportunities and smoother access for the channel in taking new technologies to market.
What they do Lisa is marketing director at Arrow ECS ANZ, responsible for the corporate marketing strategy for Arrow ECS ANZ, including the channel marketing strategy for the distributor’s portfolio of vendors.
Why they won Brigitte wins this award for outstanding sales excellence, which has had a direct impact on Araza’s growth through driving new business opportunities and contributing 70 per cent to the company’s revenue.
What they do Brigitte is a business development manager at Araza. Brigitte’s role is to sell customised services and solutions along with cultivating a relationship with the client that promotes a culture of excellence and innovation.
CHRISTINE WONG arnnet.com.au Nov 2018
32 ARN Innovation Awards 2018
INNOVATION AWARDS 2018
Channel Choice
Channel Choice is ARN’s online-only people’s choice awards, allowing readers the chance to choose their favourite vendor, distributor or partner over the past 12 months. This year, a new award was introduced in the form of Channel Enabler, recognising individuals within a vendor or distributor organisation, who continually add value for partners. This individual operates on the front-line, working with partners daily to help deliver innovation to customers.
CHRISTINE WONG
Hardware Vendor Winner / HP
HP wins Channel Choice Hardware Vendor of the Year
Software Vendor Winner / Malwarebytes
Malwarebytes wins Channel Choice Software Vendor of the Year
Nov 2018 arnnet.com.au
ARN Innovation Awards 2018
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Distributor Winner / Arrow ECS ANZ
Arrow ECS ANZ wins Channel Choice Distributor of the Year
Partner Winner / The Missing Link
The Missing Link wins Channel Choice Partner of the Year
Channel Enabler Winner / Jarred Flanigan (Sophos)
Jarred Flanigan of Sophos wins Channel Choice Channel Enabler of the Year
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INNOVATION AWARDS 2018
AWARDS 2018
Inductees
INNOVATION
Nov 2018 arnnet.com.au
Hall of Fame DURING THE PAST 12 YEARS, A HOST OF THE ICT INDUSTRY’S FINEST HAS BEEN INDUCTED INTO THE ARN HALL OF FAME, RECOGNISING THE OUTSTANDING INDIVIDUALS THAT HAVE DEMONSTRATED A LONG-TERM COMMITMENT TO THE AUSTRALIAN CHANNEL.
Hall of Fame Inductees Allan King Andrea Della Mattea Andrew Thomas Angela Fox Craig Scroggie Craig Somerville Dave Stevens David Dicker David Gage David Henderson Dominic Whitehand Doug Tutus Ian Poole John Donovan John Grant John Walters Jon Shein Kate Burleigh Karl Sice Ken Lowe Laurence Baynham Laurie Sellers Maree Lowe Moheb Moses Nick Verykios Peter Kazacos Phil Cameron
Philip Cronin Pip Marlow Ross Cochrane Ronnie Altit Scott Frew Steve Murphy Steve Nola Susan Searle Warren Nolan Wendy O’Keeffe
ARN Innovation Awards 2018
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SP O NSORED BY
Mark Leigh Director of One Commerical Partner, Microsoft Australia
Microsoft’s mission is to empower every person and every organisation on the planet to achieve more. Through technology innovations, we are inspiring our customers and showing them the potential, but our mission cannot be realised alone. Our partners play a critical role in helping us deliver on that promise. We are grateful every day for the commitment and contribution of all our partners. And some days we get to celebrate them in special ways, such as at the recent ARN Innovation Awards. We at Microsoft were delighted to sponsor the event and our managing director Steven Worrall was genuinely thrilled to be able to present the award to three ARN Hall of Fame inductees – Alex Gambotto, Felix Wong and Ken Boal. We understand and appreciate the great efforts that all of our partners in the channel make every day to ensure the users of our products and services reap maximum benefit for their business and their people. In Australia we work with 10,000 partners employing around 300,000 Australians who go to work every day to help their customers achieve more with our technology. It’s that combination of innovation and impact that is so important to individual businesses and the Australia economy. A report commissioned by CSIRO’s Data 61 which was released recently suggests that digital innovation can deliver $315 billion of economic value to Australia over the next decade. We believe Microsoft working with our partners will ensure that Australian business will succeed with digital innovation, priming it for success now and in the future.
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INNOVATION AWARDS 2018
Hall of Fame Alex Gambotto Intelligent disobedience on demand ARN HALL OF FAME INDUCTEE OUTLINES WHY HIRING SMART STAFF CREATES LONGLASTING SUCCESS
Alex Gambotto (The Missing Link); Susan Searle (ARN) and Steven Worrall (Microsoft)
Nov 2018 arnnet.com.au
Ask Alex Gambotto to outline one quality of a great leader and he’ll pause, think, and offer you five. All of equal importance and all counter-balanced by a belief that success remains grounded in ability, humility and on occasions, mutiny. “Be smart enough to hire people smarter than you, look for intelligent disobedience,” outlined Gambotto, speaking as CEO of The Missing Link. “When I look for new team members I always look for one main ingredient, intelligent disobedience. “My team and I are continually challenging the status quo, I believe intelligent disobedience is needed if you want to be the best.” As an entrepreneur — one that is never in neutral and seldom stationery Gambotto carries two roles; one day a guide, and the next, the guided. “Have the ability to analyse anybody and any situation,” he explained. “And create a positive outcome by having the right, sometimes tough, conversations with the right people. “You also need to understand that respect doesn’t come from just owning a business, you have to earn it from your team. And finally, be humble and share the success — if you make others achieve their dreams, you will achieve yours.” Building a business in a hypercompetitive market is no mean feat, yet this is where Gambotto has thrived. “I very quickly get bored of things that
don’t interest me,” he acknowledged. “But the ICT industry is fascinating because it’s fast moving and forever changing.” While a career in technology was always on the agenda for a fledgling Gambotto, the industry veteran adopts a limitless approach to life and business, refusing to restrict himself to one market. Instead, Gambotto “creates ideas and incubates them into profitable businesses”. “I’m still attracted to ICT as it’s not just about technology,” he added. “I see it as helping people to run better businesses and I love doing that.”
Starting out Founded in 1997, The Missing Link was born from a vision to help businesses transform through technology. To an extent, nothing much has changed. But on the other hand... “Our business is unrecognisable from what it was 20 years ago and frankly, I see that as exciting,” Gambotto said. “One of our key focuses is to ensure we are constantly learning and evolving. “We achieved that through a lot of hard work, even more grey hair and most importantly focussing on meeting and hiring incredible people. “I literally feel like I have a second family here, the relationships I have with my staff and business partners is something I’m very proud of but also grateful for.”
ARN Innovation Awards 2018
INNOVATION AWARDS 2018
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Hall of Fame Felix Wong A taste for tech, a brain for business ARN HALL OF FAME INDUCTEE LOOKS BACK ON THE KEY LEARNINGS IN A CAREER FILLED WITH ENTREPRENEURIAL SPIRIT
As a teenager, fresh out of high school, lacking direction and seeking a career path, Felix Wong conformed to type. “Like everyone, I had no idea what I wanted to do when I finished school,” recalled Wong, speaking as chief country executive of Australia and New Zealand at Ingram Micro. “I actually signed up to do medicine but I quickly realised I couldn’t stand the sight of blood so I changed.” With a deep love of technology, Wong aligned with the “safe bet” of electrical engineering and computer science, backed up by holiday jobs at IBM and Telstra. Before he knew it, a one-time hobby transformed into the first steps of a 25year career in technology. Wong entered the industry via IBM but left in 1992 to set up Advanced Portable Technologies, a boutique mobility distributor, becoming the first company to import PC cards and distribute wireless data solutions. “I always wanted to run my own business,” said Wong. “When I left IBM I actually had a couple of options, one of which was in the fashion industry. I had already negotiated a place in the Strand Arcade and had a contract on my desk. “But a wise man once said to me, ‘go with what you’re familiar with’ and I most certainly wasn’t familiar with fashion. I understood technology so I took his advice.”
After growing APT into a multimilliondollar business, Wong sold to Brightpoint in early 2001, eight years after launching. “Running a business is about the intellectual challenge,” recalled Wong. “It’s a challenge around how you structure a business, how you motivate people and how you develop a culture internally. “But also, how you make money, how you control P&L and how you manage cash. It’s a combination of all those levers that you need to pull when you run a business, as opposed to working in a business. I had a great eight years, had my fun and had my time.” Wong subsequently stayed at Brightpoint to take charge of Australian, and then Asia Pacific operations, before the business was acquired by Ingram Micro. After starting out as a budding entrepreneur, Wong now heads up the local operations of the world’s largest distributor, bringing a new dimension to business management. “Ingram Micro is a huge company, it’s a big machine,” Wong said. “But we’re very aligned in the way in which we do business - honour, respect and being trustworthy is fundamental. “I’ve evolved from running my own business, to running Brightpoint, then going to Asia and running a region. My takeaway is all of the things I’ve been able to learn along the way, that’s the big achievement.”
Susan Searle (ARN); Felix Wong (Ingram Micro) and Steven Worrall (Microsoft)
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INNOVATION AWARDS 2018
Hall of Fame Ken Boal The art of execution ARN HALL OF FAME INDUCTEE EXPLAINS THE BALANCING ACT OF LEADERSHIP AND THE ATTRIBUTES REQUIRED FOR SUCCESS
Susan Searle (ARN); Ken Boal (Cisco) and Steven Worrall (Microsoft)
Nov 2018 arnnet.com.au
Watch the endless video reel of TED talks and inspirational leaders capture the world with tales of creating a vision and building a strategy. Providing such guidance can be delivered within 18 minutes, these are ideas worth spreading. But while a mission statement helps determine the direction of a company, and a plan of attack outlines the path required to take, one aspect of the leadership equation is missing. “Execution,” said Ken Boal, speaking as vice president of Australia and New Zealand at Cisco. “A strong leader is somebody who can move between vision, strategy and execution. “It’s all very well to come up with ideas but then you need to guide the execution and really care about the outcome.” In accepting that “not every Ken Boal strategy has been a winner”, with a wry smile, Boal acknowledged that momentum can often be lost due to an inability to finish the job. “During my early leadership days at Cisco, I was trying to do too much,” Boal recalled. “I was chasing after every new shiny toy and every month, Cisco would naturally bring out a new shiny toy. “I was in the habit of swinging the whole company from one new shiny toy to another and it was a real knee-jerk style of leadership. As far as the team was concerned, everything was equally important, whether that was a $5 million or a $500 million opportunity.
“Over time I learned to drive some consistency and target the big rocks instead. Go after the boulders and leave some of the gravel alone as it’ll find its own space.” According to Boal – drawing on industry experience across vendor, distributor and partner organisations – leaders today must remain “market and customer orientated”, driven by an increased level of self-awareness. “I have a confidence around my strengths and I’m aware of my development areas,” he said. “Leaders can become detached quite quickly so be the master of your own destiny, prioritise and drive your own agenda. “Within that, you’ve got to strike a balance between being consultative and directive. You can’t rely on command and control but on occasions, there’s times when you need to be specific. “Knowing when those moments are and how your style should adapt is a learning curve, it’s been a trial and error process based on my experience.” In spearheading the strategy of a tech giant in Cisco, Boal is under no illusions that success thrives on partnerships, whether through industry alliances or close family ties, such as his identical twin brother, Trevor. “Having a mentor or someone you’re close to is incredibly helpful,” said Boal. “They can provide good context and depending on the situation, offer you confidence or tell you to shape up.”
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40 Roundtable NBN Co
SPONSORE D CONTE NT
DELIVERING CUSTOMER SOLUTIONS FROM THE CORE TO THE EDGE
THIS EXCLUSIVE ARN ROUNDTABLE — IN ASSOCIATION WITH NBN CO — EXPLORED HOW PARTNERS CAN DELIVER VALUE THROUGH A CHANGING TECHNOLOGY LANDSCAPE, EXAMINING HOW TO CUT THROUGH COMPLEXITY AND CAPITALISE ON EMERGING MARKET OPPORTUNITIES – JAMES HENDERSON REPORTS.
Nov 2018 arnnet.com.au
s an avalanche of new technologies descends on the Australian market, customers are seeking new ways to deliver transformation. Such a shift in demand is disrupting the supply chain, challenging the traditional linear model of the channel in the process. With customer experience key, partners today must widen the conversation to deliver on the promise of new technologies and solutions. To achieve this, the channel must evolve in parallel, driven by newlook distributors and a collaborative ecosystem. “The traditional channel supply chain has evolved significantly,” said Keith Masterton, general manager of business channels at NBN Co. “There’s been a shift away from traditional models and technologies and this trend has been taking shape for several years.”
A
NBN Co Roundtable
“Many partners are progressing alongside but others are struggling to keep pace. The customer has changed buying behaviour which increasingly impacts the channel.” For Masterton, the conventional channel is no longer “selling to an IT manager’s requirements”, rather a combination of business leaders and influencers, each housing separate budgets and technology agendas. “The market is moving towards front-end business enablement and the channel is well placed to capitalise on this disruption,” Masterton added. “The nbn™ access network can provide more than just a transition piece of the equation, rather a catalyst for widespread transformation.” “The nbn™ access network represents a compelling event for the IT industry and a platform for partners to help customers transform businesses.” The rise of new-look buyers —
Keith Masterton (NBN Co) and Felix Wong (Ingram Micro)
L-R: James Henderson (ARN); Phil Cameron (WestconComstor); Tristan Warner (eNerds); Craig Bovaird (NBN Co); Vivek Trivedi (Exigo Tech); Chris Greatrex (Artis Group); Jason Hall (Dicker Data); Tamika Sercombe (NBN Co); Craig Sims (CCNA); Felix Wong (Ingram Micro); Peter Williamson (Aria Technologies); Keith Masterton (NBN Co); Emile Nader (ICT Group); Craig Finn (Advantage Communication and Data) and Anthony Smith (Datavoice Communications)
CHRISTINE WONG
spanning marketing, HR, sales and finance — is triggering the birth of new-look partners, distributors and vendors, driven by the creation of different channels to market. “Traditionally, the supply chain was linear,” observed Jason Hall, general manager of services and IoT at Dicker Data. “But due to the rise of disruptive technologies, no one vendor has everything to offer which means the aggregation point lies with the distributor. “Distributors are now tasked with creating solutions from multiple sources, but the challenge centres in pushing this knowledge and expertise out to the channel at scale. “Our goal is to support partners and allow them to have a different type of conversation with customers, because the end-user isn’t always aware of the options available.” In short, the DNA of a distributor is changing. While traditional offerings such as box shipping, logistics and finance remain, the distributor of today — and tomorrow — no longer operates at the centre of the supply chain, rather amongst the spider web of innovation taking place across the channel. “We’re a distributor, we’re a partner of Telstra and we’re also a vendor,” summarised Peter Williamson, national sales
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and marketing manager at Aria Technologies. “We actually have a triple agreement with the channel and nbn is the inflection point. “This opens the door for dialogue with customers who may or may not be informed and partners have an opportunity to take advantage. NBN Co is providing infrastructure which allows partners to bring new and innovative solutions to businesses across Australia.” Despite an evolution of distribution, according to Williamson, the core functions remain unchanged, with a focus on enlisting, educating and enabling the channel. “There will always be challenges for partners but this also brings opportunity,” he said. “The nbn™ access network is critical to our economic success and provides a different proposition for partners, irrespective of whether you generalise or specialise.” In a market in which NBN Co offers greater choice, and differentiation for partners, the status quo has been challenged by those that are closest to the customer. The knock-on effect is a distribution game changing at pace, moving in lockstep with vendors and partners to transition to solutionbased selling, recurring revenue and the delivery of digital offerings. “Ingram Micro is evolving into a solutions aggregator,” added Felix Wong, chief country executive of Australia and New Zealand at Ingram Micro. “Technologies such as cloud, software, services and the nbn™ access network have all been developing independently during the past decade, but now we’ve reached a point of maturity. “Now the channel can help package these solutions together to better serve the end-user.” In assessing the market, Wong
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42 Roundtable NBN Co
acknowledged that the customer today is “struggling with change”, as new technologies and solutions emerge en masse and at scale. “Customers are not technologists and they require guidance to deliver on business outcomes,” Wong said. “Our role as a distributor is to not only help aggregate solutions but to provide education into the wider marketplace.” In recognising that “no one vendor can do everything”, Phil Cameron — managing director of Australia at Westcon-Comstor — explained that an air of collaboration is flowing through the channel, driven by a need to team up and join forces. “It’s now common for vendors to form alliances with other vendors which is becoming a popular trend in the channel,” Cameron said. “This type of collaboration is happening across all layers of the channel because technology buyers have completely changed. “We specialise with a base of core vendors and go deep down through the technology. Some of our vendors are seeking alignment with other vendors in our portfolio which highlights a shift in thinking for the market. “NBN Co is driving this change also, as partners move towards consultative selling and a new way of engaging the customer.”
Evolving ecosystem On the flip side, partners are also tapping into a deep pool of specialists to build packaged solutions for customers, in recognition of increased end-user demand for innovation. Innovation for innovation’s sake is a fruitless endeavour however, with the channel now tasked with initiating transformation projects that can be personalised in one instance, and delivered at scale in another.
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“Distribution and the channel both deliver value at a very high level for our business” “Distribution and the channel both deliver value at a very high level for our business,” said Vivek Trivedi, managing director of Exigo Tech. “A customer recently re-engaged with us as an IT solution provider because they now have access to the nbn™ access network, which means we can deliver on their transformation strategy. “That’s a huge statement for our business and we leveraged the channel to execute on this potential. This was a collaborative approach in which we delivered an outcome to the customer, which is resonating across the industry.” Such collaborative and consultative approaches haven’t always been engrained into the mindset of partners however, with the overuse of “technology talk” continuing to hamper progress. “It’s very difficult to move away from not talking product, and our organisation was no different,” Trivedi added. “But we have changed our approach and are now programmed in a certain way, which
Vivek Trivedi (Exigo Tech) and Tamika Sercombe (NBN Co)
allows us to talk the language of the customer.” In echoing Trivedi’s observations of a fluctuating market, Emile Nader — CEO of ICT Group — described an ecosystem in which evolution is now the norm and selling is no longer grounded in speeds and feeds. “Our sales people are consultants,” Nader explained. “We’ve got to deliver outcomes to the customer but given the rate of change within technology, it’s challenging to keep up on occasions. “We’re a small organisation in comparison to Dicker Data, and we leverage their resources and skills to support and deliver solutions to our customers. The nbn™ access network opens even more opportunities as we now have access to technologies that were previously out of reach. “Take the construction market for example. We’ve gone in, found a product and positioned this to save time and money for the customer.” Across Australia, forwardthinking partners are placing bets on specific verticals and technologies, due to the realisation that staying vanilla seldom brings success. Customers today place a premium on niche experts but for long-serving partners, flipping such a switch is no easy task. “We already have a foot in the door with our customers and have the benefit of access to different technologies,” said Tristan Warner, co-founder and CTO of eNerds. “But we don’t provide telephony and acknowledge we need to remain relevant, so it’s a constant challenge around specialisation. “Our fear, like all managed service providers, is losing customers to competitors that can do everything. It’s a credible fear position in the market because customers require a technology provider capable of providing all services due to a preference of having one bill. “We can often lose tenders in
NBN Co Roundtable
this scenario and we considered acquiring a business to help fill the gaps. But this is a difficult undertaking also.” Instead, Warner leveraged the ecosystem of compatible partners in Australia, forming an alliance with a telephony expert in Melbourne. “We don’t compete in the market and this aspect of partnering has been successful for our business,” Warner added. “But finding the right balance between specialisation and generalisation is key.” Speaking as co-managing director of CCNA, Craig Sims has recognised a “dramatic change” within the channel, leading to a regular cycle of internal change to keep pace with market shifts. “We’ve had to constantly morph and evolve our offerings,” Sims said. “This can be difficult in a consolidating market because you
Regional realities
can either do everything yourself or bring in trusted partners. “We can do a lot of the work internally and our business has always adjusted to industry trends, which has been driven by our staff. “We have people who can consult and have the capability to ask a customer what they need and to respond with some outcomeorientated solutions. That’s been fundamental to our ongoing success.”
customers come to us for our advice and expertise. We’re focusing on understanding our niche but we don’t have the luxury of a deep market. The nbn™ access network is opening the door for increased cloud migration and we’re taking advantage of those opportunities.” With presence across ACT, Victoria, Western Australia and New South Wales, Anthony Smith — owner of Datavoice
In assessing the wider Australian market, Craig Finn — managing director of Newcastle-based Advantage Communication and Data — outlined an alternative approach for regional partners, driven by a change in customer requirements. “When you’re a regional player, you become a jack of all trades,” Finn explained. “But through the rolling out of the nbn™ access network, we now have a global market available and can compete with other providers. “Previously, I would service 100 per cent of the IT budget on the voice side of the deal, but now I’m competing with different partners. There’s a lot more direct competition taking place and we’re having to constantly reinvent ourselves to remain relevant. “We’re the trusted advisor and
Craig Finn (Advantage Communication and Data); Jason Hall (Dicker Data) and Chris Greatrex (Artis Group)
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Communications — pointed to a rise in end-user knowledge as a key shift within the market, as buyers become more informed, more often. “When we speak to a customer today, they have carried out research and are more educated than before,” Smith said. “We’re in a much more competitive marketplace but they are still turning to us because we’re still experts in the industry. “If you don’t change with the times you will fall behind. Up until not long ago I was the business owner, the sales person and the sales support. “Now we’re recruiting people who are consultants and who understand the industry, the technology and the customer. But we don’t always need the expertise in-house. “We leverage the ecosystem to increase our expertise and deliver that back to the customer, lock, stock and barrel. Operating regionally can be difficult but through the nbn™ access network, we now have the bandwidth to build transformational offerings for businesses.” Operating as a small business channel specialist, Craig Bovaird — national ICT channel manager at NBN Co — endorsed the belief that regional players must be flexible, but also advised the ecosystem to align with the core goals of the customer. “It’s a simple approach in that respect,” Bovaird said. “Regional partners have to be a jack of all trades while partners in metro areas can be very specialised but it’s about listening to your customer. “No matter where you are based this approach works and allows partners to understand what their niche is and adapt accordingly. “Customers are asking different questions of the channel and the conversation has been flipped meaning partners must be targeted in how they respond, otherwise their trusted advisor status can become threatened.”
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44 Roundtable NBN Co
Getting started
Peter Williamson (Aria
While the channel is creating a new identity within the market — built on transformation and trust — partners are adjusting amid a flurry of new technologies, solutions and services. Such an adjustment can be distracting between countless rounds of presentations, product brochures and vendor pitches, creating a need to step back and take stock. Perhaps transformation is the agenda of the day, but for customers, it must be doused in realism. “Customers are asking the channel to be pragmatic,” outlined Tamika Sercombe, ICT channel program manager at NBN Co. “Whether it be cloud, IoT or digital transformation, the market is filled with hype that can easily end up not meaning anything. “For customers, these technologies appear insurmountable in the context of being deployed. Instead, they require partners to be practical in helping them understand the benefits quickly, through proof of concepts and smaller roll outs. “Simply going into a customer and selling a solution is no longer enough for the channel. Customers expect partners to understand their business, to understand their customer’s business and to help them get solutions across the line.” Yet Sercombe observed that partners continue to be hampered by an inability to effectively communicate transformation agendas with the customer, with marketing a long-time challenge for the wider supply chain. “It’s difficult to create the right mix when communicating with a customer,” Sercombe said. “Different segments of the market have a different voice which means a broadbrush campaign is often hard. “Partners must communicate the right information to the right audience, such as technical
Technologies) and Craig
Nov 2018 arnnet.com.au
Bovaird (NBN Co)
“Customers expect partners to understand their business” information to a technical audience or business information to a business audience. Relevance is key.” In response to ambitions of simply “getting started”, Chris Greatrex — managing director of Artis Group — pioneered a concept called “quick starts”, designed to deploy new solutions in tangible ways. “The CRM and ERP space is complex but we run a series of quick starts which is a process of getting technology into the hands of the customer,” Greatrex explained. “We want customers to test solutions in the business and socialise them among colleagues to gain a true understanding of what they want to achieve. “Almost every time, a quick start deployment has evolved into something larger because it’s always a first phase deployment to simply get something going. “About 20 per cent of our customer spend comes from IT, with finance and marketing the key drivers of any technology decision. Once a decision is made to proceed with
a project, that’s when we leverage the ecosystem and partner with infrastructure providers to align with our software-as-a-service offering.” In looking ahead, a modernday partner type is emerging to capitalise on a growing desire for transformation projects across Australia, fuelled by a wave of innovation impacting end-users. Because as new partners within the channel spring into life, so are customers. A study commissioned by nbn undertaken by AlphaBeta found that the nbn™ network is set to contribute to the creation of up to 80,000 new businesses by 2021. “One of the overriding value propositions of the nbn™ access network is greater choice,” Masterton added. “We’re a mega aggregator in terms of what we’re trying to achieve through the channel, and we’re bringing together the expertise of phone and internet providers, vendors, distributors and partners. “We’re building a transformation story for the ecosystem to take advantage of and through our channel program, partners can easily get started on this journey.” This roundtable and article was sponsored by nbn. Photos by Christine Wong.
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46 Capital Gains
Making its mark as a regional web development company in 2001, Link Digital began moving towards open data services about five years ago, based on CKAN, Drupal and Amazon Web Services (AWS). This soon led to picking up contract work for data.gov.au and similar work in other jurisdictions. Link Digital jumped on this opportunity after becoming involved in the early stages of the re-booting of GovHack in 2012. Since migrating data.gov.au from WordPress to CKAN, the business has grown the platform from about 3000 data sets to almost 30,000, and along the way, has worked with a range of government agencies to help achieve their open data initiatives. “We’re building more than just web experiences for a typical website, but data catalogues that extend open government data and put it into the hands of the general public,” Link Digital founder, Steven De Costa, explained. As a steering group member in CKAN since 2014, contributing into the project’s core technology roadmap, De Costa was also involved in the GovHack committee. But according to the entrepreneur, it was simply a “matter of coincidence”. “After 12 years of building websites, plus the commoditisation of web development, clients were expecting more, but expecting to pay less and it became a much less viable business,” De Costa said.
How Link Digital left web development behind to drive data growth SINCE STARTING OUT AT THE TURN OF THE CENTURY, LINK DIGITAL HAS EVOLVED FROM THE EARLY DAYS OF WEB DEVELOPMENT TO BUILD A GLOBAL BUSINESS ON DATA — JULIA TALEVSKI EXPLAINS.
“If you’re focusing on quality professional services, we would have to strip back the quality and use cheaper outsourcing suppliers, and yet even in the mix of that, the clients still demand more, putting more responsibility on web developers. “This was a winning outcome for us in the end, and we wanted to move to more of a niche and focused area in open data.” The company largely operates out of its Canberra headquarters but also has staff in Perth and Melbourne. In April, De Costa made the move to Berlin, Germany to help expand its services as it was accepted into the Australian Landing Pad in Berlin, which is run by the Australian government. This acts like a hub to meet other international start-ups and major German and European corporations, providing access to investment opportunities. “I’ve been working on that prospect for about three years, as a personal goal, and it was only in April that we really kicked that off and we’ll be in Germany for a couple years,” he said. Outside of Australia, Link Digital collaborates with partners to service
Steven De Costa (Link Digital)
Nov 2018 arnnet.com.au
clients in Denmark, Saudi Arabia (through its collaborative partnership with Master Works) and New Caledonia. Over the next two years, Link Digital expects to expand operations with a strong European team, funded directly by new client acquisitions. “We’re currently working on establishing a global partner network and looking to set up a parent company, and within the structure set up a non-profit to do research and development in the area of open data,” De Costa explained. “We’ve recently established an R&D team, which has just got two people at the moment, but we see that expanding and growing to about the same size as Link Digital through the new non-profit that will be set up in the next three to four months.” The biggest area of focus for Link Digital is within open government data, followed by corporate data management with one of its corporate clients being LEGO Systems. De Costa also pointed out in the years ahead, it will also turn its focus onto academia in open research data. “The company has grown at a fairly steady rate over the years, and will continue to do so as we’re doing more work with large corporates,” he said.”
48 ARN Innovation Awards 2018
Champagne Reception opens ARN Innovation Awards MORE THAN 690 CHANNEL LEADERS CAME TOGETHER TO TOAST THE TOP PERFORMERS OF THE AUSTRALIAN INDUSTRY, DURING THE OPENING CHAMPAGNE RECEPTION AT THE ARN INNOVATION AWARDS 2018 - IN ASSOCIATION WITH WESTCONCOMSTOR AND JUNIPER NETWORKS. PHOTOS BY CHRISTINE WONG.
SPONSORED BY WESTCON-COMSTOR AND JUNIPER NETWORKS
ARN Innovation Awards 2018
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50 ARN Innovation Awards 2018
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ARN would like to thank our sponsors APC by Schneider Electric Arrow ECS ANZ Cisco Citrix Commvault ConnectWise CrowdStrike Datto Dell EMC Dicker Data DNA Connect Exclusive Networks F5 Networks FireEye ForeScout Fujitsu HP Hewlett Packard Enterprise IBM Ingram Micro Intel ION UPS
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Thursday 20 September 2018
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52 Channel Chat
Channel Chat with
HUAWEI
JAMES HENDERSON CHATTED WITH COLIN HU, MANAGING DIRECTOR OF ENTERPRISE AT HUAWEI AUSTRALIA. Colin Hu | Huawei
From a channel perspective, what are Huawei’s top priorities during the next 12 months? Huawei Enterprise aims to ultimately sell 100 per cent via our channel partners, hence our channel is critical to support our substantial business growth targets during 2019/20. Developing a core group of accredited and capable partners is vital and our emphasis is on quality of partnerships, not quantity. Hence, building trust and expertise is front of mind — alongside pipeline development of course. We will be aiming to expand our channel ecosystem with more solution and services partners as well as enabling more engineers to be trained through our training programs especially in our key verticals including transport, energy, education and ISPs with our partners. What are the major trends currently impacting the market? Demand growth for both cloud and edge computing will accelerate as enterprises increasingly use edge design patterns in their infrastructure architectures. Cloud, big data, IoT, AI and 5G will combine into a huge force that will only accelerate when everything becomes connected and intelligent.
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How are the changing demands of the customer impacting the channel? Ecosystem is the new (and old) buzzword. Not even Huawei can provide all requirements for a customer — so resellers are acting more as agile system integrators combining multiple vendor’s hardware and software, “XaaS” business models, cloud strategies and providing business and technical consulting skills and services. This of course requires collaboration and “co-opetition” with an ecosystem built temporarily around a specific opportunity. Customers are looking to consolidate their vendors — Huawei’s product lines work off the same platform, making it easy for our customers to migrate from one product to another. It also makes it easy for partners to learn and manage the multiple solutions under one management tool. What can the channel expect from Huawei in 2018? Rather than acquire technology and then try and integrate different pieces together, we prefer to build on our platform. This benefits our partners. For those conducting their own R&D, we have structured our channel program around enabling them to devise and execute their own solutions —
and take ownership of them — while basing it on Huawei’s technology. We will continue to offer free standard training to help enable our partners on how to successfully sell our solutions. We also have a robust rebate program and an extensive deal registration program that protect our partner’s investment and profit. What are the key challenges for partners to overcome in the year ahead? Huawei partners need to continue to persevere in the face of our ban from 5G to telcos. We will continue to fight for the best technology for Australia and I believe Huawei will emerge from this chapter even stronger. The Smart China reality is here — despite the push back from traditional vendors, Huawei is positioned in the world’s top five R&D investors across all industries and we will increasingly make the best cutting edge technology available to enterprises across Australia. Where do you see opportunity for partners in 2018? Our partners can also rely on Huawei’s support around their own innovation. Being part of an ecosystem that values R&D and innovation, and values a strong and growing channel, means Huawei is incredibly receptive to ideas. We are a partner centric company — we have very strict restrictions on direct sales and always prefer working on opportunities with, and through, channel partners. In one word, how do you think channel partners describe your company? Unstoppable.
54 Interview Juniper Networks
TRANSFORMING THROUGH NETWORK, SECURITY AND MULTI-CLOUD JUNIPER NETWORKS CEO RAMI RAHIM SAT DOWN WITH ARN, COMPUTERWORLD AND NETWORK WORLD DURING THE VENDOR’S ANNUAL NXTWORK CONFERENCE TO OUTLINE THE VENDOR’S KEY PRIORITIES FOR 2019 — MICHAEL COONEY AND STUART CORNER REPORT.
U
nder the leadership of CEO Rami Rahim, Juniper Networks is heading in a new direction. But this isn’t just PR spin or marketing rhetoric, with the vendor making a series of market bets to better position against chief competitors such as Cisco, Arista, Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Huawei.
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To achieve this, technological transformation will be key. Juniper invested heavily in 400G Ethernet earlier this year, detailing plans to transition its wide-area network, data centre and enterprise portfolio to 400G Ethernet. Furthermore, the specialist provider also released its Contrail Enterprise Multi-cloud software, an SDN controller that is the central component of its multi-cloud, intentbased networking strategy. “There’s no way to get around the biggest trend, and that is the tectonic shift to cloud and multi-cloud,” observed Rahim. “I am not just talking about the hyper-scale users either. I am talking telcos and enterprises. “It’s a sign of the times that every CIO is trying to take advantage of a multi-cloud environment, whether it’s to build out an infrastructure to handle it or deploy an overlay or underlay — they just cannot do it by themselves. That’s why we have
Juniper Networks Interview
55
“We don’t think 5G technologies will go mainstream until next year”
Rami Rahim CEO, Juniper Networks
so heavily invested in multi-cloud connectivity and software services development.” According to Rahim, the second major shift impacting the industry centres around 5G, impacting businesses both locally and globally. “Overall, we don’t think 5G technologies will go mainstream until next year, but the preparation for it is well underway,” Rahim added. “Cloud services and providers are developing the infrastructure and capacity to take advantage of 5G now. “Security would be the third, and what we are seeing is the trend of customers tying together networks and security technologies to develop more effective policies to block malware and protect the enterprise against threats better than ever before. “Users are leveraging the network to protect everything from the cloud, WAN and local resources by using analytics to see where threats are coming from and developing policies
to block attacks much more efficiently.” Specific to security, the vendor’s business grew 16 per cent yearover-year during recent financials, representing a third consecutive quarter of year-over-year growth. “Our SDSN [Software-Defined Secure Network, Juniper’s overarching security platform] is resonating with users that want to more closely tie security and networking,” Rahim said. “Our SRX [firewalls] have seen meaningful upgrades recently, and you continue to see build-up on these things to better handle the demands of network and security policies. “The area that needs a refresh is the high end, where we want to have a security firewall capable of handling vast amounts of traffic. “We see SDN as the key technology to linking the multicloud environment. SDN isn’t about moving packets, it’s about the ability to simplify the growing, highly
distributed resources customers are dealing with now. It helps enable and simplify distributed operations and develop a single logical pool of data. “Our Contrail Controller, for example, uses SDN to handle orchestration and automation, all without requiring the customer to be a rocket scientist to do it.” Rahim added that Juniper is “betting big” on the transition to 400G Ethernet, in response to increased market demand. “It’s a technology we see growing rapidly in the next couple years,” he explained. “Primary use cases we see are data centre inter-networking and backbone upgrades, and hyper-scalers as well as cloud providers and telcos. “Video will be a big driver of course. As soon as 400G optics become more cost effective — which we expect by the end of 12019 — than running four 100G pipes, that’s when we expect it to take off. It won’t be a forklift upgrade for customers.”
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56 Interview Juniper Networks
Hiding network complexity A year on from unveiling his new vision for the company, Juniper Networks CEO Rami Rahim outlined ‘Engineering Simplicity’ to Australian customers and partners during NXTWORK in Sydney and Melbourne. Rahim initially detailed ‘Engineering Simplicity’ in a December 2017 blog post: “In 2018 we’re getting back to basics with a focus on Engineering Simplicity. This is more than a new marketing tagline, it’s an acknowledgement that in today’s complex world, the thing that impedes our collective progress is complexity.” Rahim said that the growth the vendor had enjoyed in the networking market over the past decade had come at the expense of a greater level of complexity in networking. “[Engineering Simplicity] is a combination of two things: a recognition that the biggest problem in networking today is achieving simplicity, and a recognition that the only way to solve for simplicity is by having a deep level of engineering acumen to solve the problem holistically,” he said. However, he said this does not mean simplification in the underlying technology, but rather hiding that complexity from the
Rami Rahim CEO, Juniper Networks
Nov 2018 arnnet.com.au
customer. “You cannot wave away complexity, you cannot wish it away; you can only shift it,” Rahim added. “We have made a commitment at Juniper to shift complexity away from our customers and on to us. “It is not case shift that the only thing that matters for Juniper is simplicity. It is all of what we have delivered to our customers around scale and performance efficiency and programmability and then adding a new dimension around simplicity of operation.” While much has been made in recent times of the power of intent-based networking to simplify the configuration and operation of networks, Rahim said it was yet to achieve this promise. “Intent-based networking is a great thing, but we have to deliver on it and we have not done that yet, although I think we have made strides,” Rahim added. However, Rahim said considerable progress had been made in the year since he unveiled Engineering Simplicity: “We have looked at all our product offerings, our documentation, our marketing literature and made meaningful improvements but we are just now in year two on the cusp of introducing some ground-breaking new solutions.” Rahim provided an example of Contrail Enterprise Multi-cloud, which he described as “the epitome of simplicity applied to the next chapter in networking around multi-cloud,” and “a wonderful example of our commitment to engineering simplicity.” “Every CIO you talk to wants to move applications and workloads to some combination of private cloud and multiple public cloud, but without dealing with the complexity of a multi-cloud environment,” he explained. “Google, Azure, AWS all have their own experiences. And CIOs need a security policy that gives them the peace of mind as they move to this multi-cloud environment. “Contrail Enterprise Multicloud abstracts away that
complexity. It is a single software solution to overlay and underlay management of virtual machines, bare metal and containers. It supports intent based policy creation across networking and a heterogeneous environment that supports Juniper and other networking infrastructure.”
Corporate structure simplified Rahim, who became CEO in 2014, is a 20-year veteran of Juniper. He was employee number 32, hired in 1997 to work on Juniper's first major product, the M40 core router, and he has applied the mantra of simplicity to Juniper’s company structure. Rahim said: “It took me several years to flatten the organisation and do away with siloed business units. “The reason I did this is because the industry is moving fast and those who can move faster than the industry will win. If every decision you make you must convince 10 general managers to follow suit you will lose. “Secondly the technology is changing: the line between what have traditionally been separate products is changing. Routers and switches are blurring into a common set of products and you do not want organisational boundaries to slow you down from making the important product decisions that reflect this change.” When asked how the company accommodated this harmonised product approach to the needs of different markets, Rahim said: “We have domain leads responsible for understanding and defining the products for each domain and translating those back to a common engineering function that straddles all domains and allows us to build products we can leverage across all domains “For example, our universal chassis supports different personalities for high performance switching, programmable edge functions and core routing functions. It is a single product with different line card options and different software features.”
58 Interview Tradewinds
INSIDE THE WORLD OF AUSTRALIA’S LATEST DIGITAL DISTRIBUTOR AS ONE OF THREE CO-FOUNDERS OF US-BASED MASTER AGENT DISTRIBUTOR, TELARUS, ADAM EDWARDS IS BUILDING A DIGITAL DISTRIBUTOR IN AUSTRALIA UNDER THE BANNER OF TRADEWINDS — JULIA TALEVSKI REPORTS.
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A
long with his fellow co-founders Patrick Oborn — vice president of partner experience; and Richard Murray — chief operations officer, Adam Edwards set upon this new challenger distribution model in 2002. Branching out to Australia this year was the first step that the distributor made towards its international expansion efforts. “We believe the model we’re running is right internationally,” Edwards said. “We believe it follows the pattern of cloud, which is digital distribution. When you don’t have a physical product to distribute, a lot of the logistics go away, but what doesn’t go away is the relationships.” Australia was earmarked as the hot spot for international expansion after Edwards toured the region last year, soon recognising the potential. The expansion effort was further pushed along after appointing distribution stalwart, Tony Heywood as head of channel across Australia and New Zealand in April. Heywood has spent more than 10 years in the distribution landscape with Westcon-Comstor and Lan Systems. In his new role with Tradewinds, he has been tasked with setting up the rebranded Australian version of Telarus and driving its agency model concept, in which third-party cloud brokers are recruited, trained,
60 Interview Tradewinds
and supported to advise clients on which cloud communications and/or infrastructure services are suitable. “We explored the market scene last year, and got together with Tony in April, and he’s speaking with both service providers and prospective partners,” Edwards said. “One person that we engaged with in Australia early on recommended us to consider the market because the entrepreneurial drive and partner community is much more vibrant than other places.” From a US expansion perspective, when considering the barriers to entry such as language, Edwards said the business was left with options of Canada, UK and Australia. “While I believe this model will be global in the next several years, Australia will have a strong hold because of its tendency to work with trusted advisors,” Edwards further explained. “There’s some cultures that aren’t open to that. “In Europe for instance, they like to see their products distributed through the carrier. That’s not the case in Australia, and it’s similar to the US, in that there’s a very independent feeling here. The ethos is an independent, entrepreneurial drive, and we believe the model will thrive in that environment.”
Australian approach The Telarus branding in the Australian market faced a bit of challenge due to a different company, carrying the same name. So, to combat this, the company re-jigged its name to Tradewinds Brokerage, specifically for the local market. Since its launch in August, Heywood said it now has several active partners that are already closing business for its vendors. “This is mainly in the UCaaS space, where there seems to be demand,” he said. “Outlining the opportunity and the agency model is a good, positive conversation with
Nov 2018 arnnet.com.au
“We must do justice to the vendors that have put their faith in us”
as-a-service areas including unified communications (UCaaS), contact centre and cloud. From a partner point of view, Heywood said it will be building up partnerships in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane as the first focal point, followed by looking at expanding into the New Zealand marketplace. “But first, we must do justice to the vendors that have put their faith in us,” Heywood said. “We’ll expand from our current distribution line up to build out a menu that means that term ‘trusted advisor’ for the partner is no longer — I’m your trusted advisor so long as you buy what I’m certified in,’ it’s ’I’m your trusted advisor because I have access to a breadth of technology that no one else does’. “It’s a very different model to the traditional distribution supply-chain model.”
Rise of the aggregator partners on building incremental, recurring revenues for their business. So, what is it exactly that sets Tradewinds apart from other distributor entities in the market also banking on ‘cloud’ technologies? Simply put, anything that can be done as a service can be put through this model, Heywood explained. “Because it is a referral and an agency model instead of a true distribution model, then it’s totally flexible in the type of partner that we can develop a relationship with and that we can facilitate relationships with for vendors,” Heywood embellished. “Partners want to know that it’s a commercially sensible opportunity, and the way that the model works is that the commissions they make are a 100 per cent contribution to their EBITDA — less revenue, but a high percentage of profit.” Initially Telarus is focusing on three discrete areas of technology
While being lumped in the with distribution tag, Edwards said ‘aggregator’ is probably more akin to what the company is striving towards. “We’re aggregating volume, but if you look at sales motion, it requires a different engagement with the partner to help them be successful,” Edwards said. “Distributors that focus on logistics, warehousing, shipping and optimising — that competency will continue to exist because physical goods will continue to be transported, but what is increasingly important to partners, is making their customer happy. “I think the partner of the future, is much more in line with the customer’s needs and their outcomes. Partners are only safe when the customer continues to come back to them for advice, direction and services.” Specific to the Australian market, Tradewinds’ vendor line-up features
Extend your VMware environment into the cloud
62 Interview Tradewinds OBT Anywhere, Rackspace, cloud collaboration vendor, RingCentral, 8x8, fuze, Genesys and Nice InContact. The privately-owned company’s platinum partners include CenturyLink, Comcast Business, Five9 and Viasat. Other partners include Telstra, Verizon Business, and NTT Communications. Entering a new market with a different approach to the distribution game, puts forward a mix of challenges. But Heywood admits his biggest challenge was with himself and believing in the model. “I didn’t understand the power of the model until I interviewed some partners who said they started out as a one-man band, and now they employ up to 50-100 people, and did
partner can rest easy that providing a qualified lead to the vendor will greatly increase the likelihood of success in that opportunity.” An example of where the Tradewinds model could add value to a partner, is through providing them with a whole array of technologies, they may not necessarily be certified in, but can offer to the customer through the vendor representative on their behalf. Heywood explained with one MSP in Victoria, voice technology is alien to what they do, but under the Tradewinds model, they can offer the service to customers as required. “There’s no certification criteria, but the vendor will represent their interest at the end-user level for that technology,” he said. “The customer
“I believe after 12 months, people will know the model”
millions in commissions per month. I was the biggest hurdle,” Heywood admitted. “There’s an unhealthy distrust with vendors dealing directly with end-users, and in this model that is exactly what I’m asking them to do.” Building pipeline, Heywood said, is always the challenging part. “With the history in Australia of many vendors trampling over their partners to get to a deal, our biggest job is helping the partners understand that the agency model eliminates this tension,” he said. “With the vendor being given full responsibility for the sale, as well as then paying the commission to the partner each and every month, for the life of the customer, the
Nov 2018 arnnet.com.au
relationship is still there for the partner, but it’s one based on trust and integrity, rather than technology alone.” Heywood adds that what it is trying to build into Tradewinds and the master agency model, is about providing a risk-free platform for growth. “We do this by using the financial strength of our own organisation, the market presence of the vendors and the agency model itself, where the partner has no cost of carrying the deal,” Heywood said.
Partner play Leaning on his own experience in the distribution arena, Heywood said partners often left money on
the table because they didn’t have the technical skill or right sales motion to identify, qualify and close opportunities. “This was mainly due to the cost of certification,” he said. “With the master agency model, the vendors are not asking for this commitment. They just want qualified leads. This allows Tradewinds to help the partner identify new pockets of revenue that, if they can win with the vendor, will lock their competitors out.” Eventually the distributor will move from using its US-centric resources to develop local resources as well as a marketing strategy specific to the Australian market. “We built every element of resources for the partner’s business, from the beginning of the customer life, involving branding, website, marketing, demand generation, all the way to deal architecture, and having an engineer help them out through to deal registration, and integration project management” Edwards said. “What we’ve found in the US, is in some cases, some partners want us to support their customers on their behalf, which we can do, but as it turns out, every partner is different and wants different elements of our offering.” As Tradewinds makes its mark on the Australian market, Edwards pointed out that success doesn’t occur over night, and that it was into building relationships for the long run. “I believe after 12 months, people will know the model, whether they’re participating or not,” Edwards added. “We are the largest privately held master agent in the market, and we know the other distributors have taken notice because they’ve reached out to us, they’re watching and I think wisely so. “The model is evolving. There’s a different way and within 12 months, if we can make the market aware of that, then we’ll be in a very good place.”
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64 Channel Confidential
Another vendor overhaul means another problem for partners
GOING OFF THE RECORD TO REVEAL THE UNSPOKEN UTTERINGS OF PARTNERS, VENDORS AND DISTRIBUTORS.
When most vendors implement new changes to their strategies or programs, it usually results in something more lucrative for partners such as margin, incentives, training or support. But in some instances, this is not always the case and the changes can be hard to keep up with in terms of investing in time and further training. Take the changes that Microsoft has made to its cloud service provider (CSP) program, particularly impacting direct billing CSP tier-1 partners. Specifically, Microsoft said it was necessary for tier-1 partners to “take a grip over the requirements” and pay attention to the details of the update, otherwise, they won’t be able to continue as a tier-1 CSP at their enrolment anniversary, but could still provide services via an indirect service provider instead. Not an ideal scenario for small providers that would turn over a considerably small amount of Microsoft dollars, but was still necessary to provide a full service to their loyal base of customers. From 31 August, tier-1 CSPs were required to implement two key capabilities
Nov 2018 arnnet.com.au
along with providing support under a Microsoft support plan. Microsoft said when the update comes into effect, tier-1 CSPs can either provide an IP service, managed service or a solution application to customers in addition to implementing basic billing infrastructure. The other change involved distributors taking part in providing one of two support plans — Microsoft Advanced Support or Microsoft Premier Support for Partners. Previously, Microsoft took it upon themselves to provide direct support on a customer issue. The premier version promises a lot more involvement with site training, response time based on customer priorities and management of accounts. One CSP tier-1 partner runs a small MSP business, and because of these changes, will effectively lose their tier-1 status. This business generated roughly $6000 in Microsoft sales per month, and if they ever really required direct support from the vendor, it would realistically lodge one support ticket in a 12-month period, and sometimes not all. Usually, if there was a problem, it was due to a glitch in certain Microsoft-related
updates currently available. This MSP vented his frustration at potentially losing his CSP tier-1 status to his distributor, which frankly replied “that’s the way it is, just suck it up and deal with it.” At $6000 per month, this doesn’t essentially quantify enough attention from Microsoft themselves to take a handle on this MSP’s frustration, but this monthly figure could be relied upon to make a small contribution to the business, and keep a comfortable footing with customers as a result. As far as alerting tier-1 partners to these changes, this MSP revealed they only received a single email from Microsoft, leaving a matter of months to consider the changes, the strategy they need to take to keep their status, and what it could potentially mean if they lose this standing among their customer base and future business opportunities. It’s a bitter pill to swallow. But as it rings true in the industry, vendors do like to “shake things up” and it will be interesting to see how smaller MSPs will or won’t adjust to these changes, and if Microsoft will take enough notice of these concerns among their smaller MSPs, to shift gears once more.
ION unveils it’s first look at the F15R
A compact and cost-effective design that works perfectly for applications with limited space
The F15R is a unique rack mounted power protection solution tailored for applications that have limited space and depth available.
F15R FEATURES
The F15R comes in three sizes - 650VA, 1200VA and 1600VA.
Compact 1RU and short depth design
All three sizes have short physical depths leaving plenty of room for
Fan-less Technology
cabling equipment.
Optional Conformal Coating for harsh environments
Stable Low Frequency Design LCD Display
The F15R range is the perfect way to flexibly integrate reliable
Pure Sine Wave Automatic Voltage Regulation (AVR)
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Energy Saving UPS Technology
routers, storage devices and short depth rack applications exposed
Auto-Restart / Auto-Charge
to potential data loss, corruption and downtime. To top off this
Cold Start Function
unique product range it also comes with ION’s market leading 3 Year
Optional SNMP and SNMP Wi-Fi card
Advanced Replacement Warranty on electronics and batteries*.
HID USB & RS232 Connectivity Ports*
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YEAR ADVANCED REPLACEMENT WARRANTY*
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