Day 1 of XChange Best of Breed kicks off

The event began with some interesting talks on addressing cyber risks, what value in the channel means in 2023 and selling to CIOs

The first day of XChange Best of Breed 2023 is underway at the Ashdown Park Hotel in East Sussex.

The CRN event brings together the IT channel's leading C-suite of premier solution providers and technology suppliers for two days of informing panel sessions and networking.

The event began with a presentation by Simon Crawley-Trice about the importance of boards addressing cyber risks.

The CEO of Six Degrees shared some highlights and key learnings about today's cyber threat landscape, making the case for why cyber must have a place at the boardroom table and how working with a CISO will enable you to develop and execute your strategy.

Rob Allen from Threatlocker followed this with a talk about end point security, before our first panel discussed what value looks like in 2023.

In that session, Chris Gabriel, chief strategy officer at Sapphire Systems, Jenny Latimer, head of alliances & operations at Highgate IT and Richard Behan, chief corporate development officer at CAE Technology Services discussed how resellers can create value for their customers, and how to add value to the channel as a whole and its workforce.

In answer to the question of how resellers can add value to their business, Gabriel explained: "I think exploring new things is always going to be important.

"There's two things. One is incremental value around the thing that you do.

"That's where we focus most, not trying to launch a brand new portfolio every six months is to say, well, we've sold you X and delivered X. What are the things that we can help you maximise that investment?

"Incremental value around your core, I think is really important because it's really easy to divert off into doing new things for the sake of it. Everybody wants to become an MSP, but are you good at it, can you deliver it? And then if a customer spent X amount with you five years ago, and they spend another 10, can you make that 110/150 in terms of return?

"That's where we focus as a business is really driving that message in that engagement and also training our people to do it re-enabling.

"So not forgetting that we're organisation that needs to be on our game everyday and being able to come deliver that message and deliver those capabilities."

Latimer also answered, saying: ""What we are doing is we're looking at our partners, who already have the expertise.

"There's a skill shortage, so why is everyone looking around asking who they can bring in to improve our services, when I can tell you, there are so many best of the best service providers, value-added distributors that already have the expertise and the support in place."

Behan echoed: "I think that's a really good point. Partnerships in this world, in the channel, are becoming more important. I think that transparency of working together, being able to offer more, is an element of value, 100 per cent."

Our final panel of the day instead looked at selling to CIOs, the dos and don'ts.

Steven Capper, chief information officer at SNC Lavalin Group shared his top-line advice during that session saying: "So I think for me, I like it when people actually understand our business and absolutely understand the challenges we've got.

"We've got projects that run for a really long time and several things come into play. So understand our business, our needs, don't just throw solutions.

"I think for me, that's the only way to get through."

Keep checking our website for full reports of the most interesting conversations at the event.