Almost all resellers have enjoyed growth over the year

97 percent of channel resellers have experienced growth over the last 12 months, according to research.

The research, conducted by Censuswide for hybrid cloud services provider Pulsant, showed that growth in the market could be attributed to multiple factors. These include acquiring new talent (63 percent of respondents), incorporating SaaS or cloud into their product offering (47 percent) and marketing initiatives (37 percent).

However, those organisations that were transitioning to become SaaS or cloud providers still came up against a number of obstacles, with service delivery the most cited (33 percent), followed by adjusting to a new business model (20 percent) and difficulty in finding the right cloud provider (12 percent).

The survey also demonstrated the ways in which channel businesses are trying to remain competitive. Almost two-thirds of respondents said they were working with partners with complementary solutions in order to stand out, while 60 percent said they were adopting new solutions like cloud.

Chris Roberts, channel director at Pulsant, said: “There’s absolutely no doubt that cloud has changed the way that we do business and is becoming a dominant market force. The channel has been transitioning over the past few years, adapting to the changes that cloud has brought, so this level of positive growth reflected in the research is a powerful indication of the strength of the market.”

The research also found that 96 percent of channel businesses said their cloud opportunities “have been realised”, and 90 percent are becoming cloud or SaaS providers. Organisation culture and sales and marketing approaches “require the most attention” when becoming providers, respondents said.

Censuswide polled 104 IT resellers of different size for the research.

@AntonySavvas