Meet the contenders: Q&A with a Best PSA/RMM Vendor Award - Zyxel Networks

Zyxel Networks is on the shortlist in this year's European MSP Innovation Award due to be held in London this week

CRN's sister publication Channel Partner Insight was happy to reveal the companies who have made it through to be shortlisted in the European MSP Innovation Awards 2022 earlier in the year.

The standard of entries was extremely high.

The ‘perfect storm' of challenges of supply chain constraints, inflation, Covid and the Russia-Ukraine conflict seems to have sparked a flurry of innovative "outside the box" thinking to adapt, adjust and thrive throughout the European market.

Back for its fourth year, we are due to announce the winners - in person - in an exclusive site in the heart of London this Thursday.

Here, the executive vice-president sales and marketing EMEA at Zyxel Networks, Jean-Marc Guignier, tells us about what made his firm stand out among its peers, and where the business is headed next for partners.

Congratulations for being shortlisted for such a competitive category. What does it mean to be highlighted in this way?

This means a lot for Zyxel Networks. I've often said that Zyxel is one of the IT industry's best kept secrets.

We've been in this business for 30 years and we have a very solid brand reputation among our very loyal customers, but still too many people don't know who we are and what we do.

This recognition is testament to our expertise, reseller engagement and values which we've worked hard to demonstrate over the past 30 years in business.

Does any particular category stand out for you in terms of the company's performance over the last 12 months?

We've built our business on 4 core product categories; Security, Switch, Wifi and Mobile Connectivity (LTE/5G). But the main growth driver is definitively our Cloud Management solution, Nebula.

This solution, which supports the four product lines, is widely adopted amongst our customers because it enables them to configure and control all our devices via one central management solution.

What trend or market change is doing the most to impact your partners, currently?

Needless to say, the pandemic has had a massive impact on the IT sector. The need for a remote management tool has grown tremendously, as travelling to the customer premises for instalment was almost impossible for many months.

Our resellers, facing this new reality, are now moving toward a subscription model as much as they can to secure their revenue, which is certainly a positive development.

Do you anticipate that changing over the next 12 months?

The IT industry has outperformed many economic sectors during and after the pandemic. We know that this shift towards a more digitised economy is still ongoing, but the global economic landscape will no doubt be turbulent over the next 12 months.

With high inflation rates, growing interest rates, and the massive jump on energy prices, we know that the investment from small and medium businesses could suffer.

Innovation is therefore imperative for us, as we must bring new solutions to aid our resellers.

What are the most common questions you get from your partners?

We're seeing two major questions being asked by our customers at the moment. The first being the competitive advantages offered by Zyxel products, and how this will help them to win deals and be unique.

The second major question is about the way we sell our products, the overall business model that we propose and how the resellers could differentiate themselves from what we generally call online purchasing. It is very important to notice that, as a vendor and as a brand, we have a role to play in leading initiatives within our sector.

Could you pick out any nuances in your European channel? What is selling particularly well in specific geographies, as an example?

The appetite for online purchasing is particularly nuanced in the European channel.

The UK and Germany are far more advanced in their appetite for remoteness, whereas in France and Italy, there remains a strong demand for more traditional, face to face, engagement.

What are you most excited about for the future in terms of the channel and growth?

At Zyxel, we're experiencing huge momentum across all dimensions, which is indicative of wider channel growth. Speaking on Zyxel more specifically, we are expanding our operations into new countries such as Cyprus, Portugal and Israel, and we are growing double digits all across Europe.

We're also attracting new resellers every day, who are discovering our unique portfolio, the tremendous support that our teams are giving to our distributors and resellers, and the second to none product quality and support.