Channel Awards 2024: Q&A with Simon Furber, Roc Technologies

Ahead of the 2024 Channel Awards, CRN is running a series of articles featuring nominees and partners. In this edition, Simon Furber, CEO of AI Project of the Year nominee Roc Technologies, talks about what the awards mean to Roc and the industry.

Why do you think events like the Channel Awards matter?

Events like the Channel Awards matter because they are all about recognising, rewarding and celebrating innovations across our industry.

As we come together on awards night, we hear how colleagues across the industry are creating new solutions, finding new ways to solve old problems, and naturally we take that learning back into our own customer conversations.

These awards help drive and perpetuate innovation and mean that – in the long run – customer needs are being served more effectively.

What would winning this award mean to your company?

Roc has had a great year, but we have demanded a lot of time and dedication from our team as we invest in our people to ensure we have the expertise and capability to leverage cutting-edge technologies such as AI.

Winning this award would recognise their commitment and determination to meet customer needs and expectations.

What would you say is your company's proudest achievement over the past year?

Over the summer, we were incredibly proud that Roc was awarded the Juniper AI partner of the year for EMEA.

That was phenomenal enough, but we were then blown away to be awarded their Global AI partner of the year as well.

Recognition from such a great partner is brilliant, but the success that our customers have seen from the underlying transformations is what truly motivates us.

What have been the biggest challenges of 2024 so far and how have you overcome them?

Like most organisations, we have seen a lot of instability, globally but also in our own country over the summer.

That nervousness naturally leads to hesitancy in businesses considering large investments in their IT.

At Roc we have focused on bringing customers iron-clad business cases that demonstrate that outcomes and ROI that their investment will bring.

These have been essential in building confidence.

How have your people helped with that?

Everyone in your organisation plays a part in creating confidence, it's about doing what you say you are going to do, when you say you are going to do it, with no excuses.

Whether that is a business case, a delivery, or just turning up on site on time, every interaction a customer has with your organisation has an impact on both confidence and trust.

How do you think the channel has changed over the past year and what changes do you think it still needs to make?

I think now is an incredibly exciting time to be in our sector, and that excitement is being recognised by investors, who we have seen making major investments especially in start ups.

What's particularly interesting is the diversity of those startups – and the breadth of impact across all parts of society.

I think as a channel we need to continue to ensure we are reflecting that diversity in our own offering to our customers.

What do you see as the main opportunities for the channel in the coming year?

There is a lot of noise in the market about emerging tech, not least AI.

But I think the opportunity and the primary use cases to a large extent are still undefined – mainly because there is so much opportunity it can be difficult to know where to begin.

Having a clear story about how to ‘adopt in anger' will become a major differentiator in customer conversations.

How do you plan to capitalise on those opportunities?

By winning our award for the Best AI Driven Project and showcasing just why we won to our customers and prospects.