Market research industry report: Top 3 findings to power up your data for XaaS
Data is powerful. For partners scaling their everything-as-a-service (XaaS) journey, data can unlock new business value, enable growth opportunities, and help them make better mission-critical decisions.
But only when they have access to the right data at the right time, with the right resources. Our big question: do partners have the right data at their fingertips, and can they use it practically to fuel their XaaS transformation?
To find that out, we recently surveyed 540 channel partners from the UK, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Australia, Indonesia, South Africa, Nigeria, and Kenya. Commercial decision-makers at value-added resellers, managed service providers, and systems integrators shared their insights about data’s importance and their struggles with access to and use of data.
The results are in, and we found 3 key trends:
Trend 1:
Data is important for channel partner growth and XaaS transformation but access to the right data is challenging
97% of partners see data as important to their XaaS transformation and growth. But not just any data.
Our last year’s channel research report highlighted that partners need comprehensive, actionable lifecycle data that helps them improve customer experience, gain insights for better decision-making, build pipelines for new products and services based on customer trends, and more.
Despite their current investments in in-house data and analytics functions, most (54%) say access to the right data to maximise and optimise the customer lifecycle is a challenge.
“Accurate and complete data is very important for our business. We use our internal data but the challenge we have is visibility into existing customers and the industry. We don’t have the right data now to grow our subscription business.”
Trend 2:
The practical use of data is a big challenge
56% of partners are challenged with handling diverse data sources and types.
Partners are inundated with a constant stream of data from multiple vendors, customers, and internal systems, with inconsistencies in format, structure, and quality. Data deluge can be a bane – a high volume of data doesn’t guarantee desirable output for partners.
Integrating and analysing diverse data sets as well as introducing automation – although it can be time-consuming and technically complex – is the right way for partners to take their data utilisation to the next level.
“Our biggest challenge with data is the volumes we receive, and second to that would be that it resides in so many different places and it often conflicts.”
Trend 3:
Data on market growth opportunities from distributors can help partners with their XaaS growth
61% say data for market growth opportunities is the most valued type of data a distributor could supply.
As partners are facing challenges in using data the right way, they’re partnering with IT distributors who have innovative data and analytics capabilities to get the best out of their data.
Partners are most interested in using market growth opportunity data to expand their reach and target new customer segments.
“Distribution can add big value through data. Not just data on existing install bases and what was previously purchased but also looking at white space analysis and new opportunities.”
Future outlook
59% of partners agree that the future of distribution lies in the provision of meaningful customer and market data insights.
Customer lifecycle data plays a crucial role in lifecycle selling within XaaS models. For partners focused on accelerating their XaaS growth, having a data-driven framework will help them optimise customer engagement and drive recurring revenue throughout the customer lifecycle.
IT distributors are pivotal in bridging the existing gap between partners and their data and help accelerate their journey to a subscription, software, and services-based future.
How can IT distributors like Westcon-Comstor fuel channel partner growth and ensure Partner Success?
Find out in our latest market research industry report.
