By Mark Charleton of Blue Solutions
Some of you will have read by now that Doyenz is exiting the UK market, and at very short notice. Doyenz will no longer be providing or supporting the rCloud backup and recovery service in the UK by the end of this week, 10th August 2012. I received email confirmation myself this morning. Our UK resellers and MSPs were emailed directly at the same time to notify them of the change.
Based on many of the comments I have read in the media, on Twitter and calls I have received into the office today, I also appreciate how extremely frustrating this is for our reseller and MSP partners.
It is not easy for international firms to break into the UK market, particularly in a poor economy and sadly, I suspect this might not be the only withdrawal we will see over the next 12-24 months. It does happen.
The distribution market in general has a very big role to play in trying to limit impact on the reseller community of such withdrawals, and it needs to take this very seriously. Along with standard due diligence when agreeing to work with vendors, distribution should:
- Only work with vendors that it believes has products and services that add competitive advantage to resellers
- Be prepared to use the vendor’s products itself, in-house, to act as a test bed and check on-going suitability for the reseller community
- Maintain a strong and close working relationship with the vendor to ensure constant communications on market and product developments
- Build a broad portfolio of complimentary vendors to present best fit choice [and alternatives] for resellers
When situations like Doyenz’s exit from the UK market happens [and often completely by surprise], distribution must have:
- Accurate information available for resellers
Well trained, knowledgeable product experts available to support resellers - Direct telephone and email support
A migration path [where possible] for resellers to work with alternative cloud suppliers
Obviously I’m biased given my role at Blue Solutions, but I do think it is really important for distribution and the reseller community to stick together in times of turmoil such as Doyenz’s exit, we want to help and we will help wherever possible.