Krome Cast: TECH-IT-OUT - Tech Channel Insights & Tech Trends 2021

In this episode of Krome Cast: Tech-it-out we discuss our technology predictions for 2021, including long term remote working, Cloud adoption, XaaS (Everything-as-a-service), and AI predictions for the future. In this easy to consume technology podcast, we also discuss managing a remote workforce and the importance of maintaining a strong remote company culture.

This podcast features Krome’s Commercial Director, Sam Mager along with Krome's Sales Director Simon Archibald, Simon who joined Krome, having worked for 12 years previously at Dell, managing Krome as a Dell Partner. 

Simon talks about his technology channel experiences, how he manages his remote sales teams and his future technology predictions for 2021.

► ABOUT KROME: Krome Technologies is a technically strong, people-centric technology consultancy, focused on delivering end-to-end infrastructure and security solutions that solve business challenges and protect critical data. We work collaboratively with clients, forming long-term business partnerships, applying knowledge, experience and the resources our clients need to solve problems, design solutions and co-create agile, efficient and scalable IT services.

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Transcript

Sam Mager  0:01  
Welcome to today's edition of Krome Cast. Tech it out. I'm Sam Mager. And today I will be speaking of our Sales Director, Simon Archibald. Today we talk about challenges of managing a sales team remotely. And some of the tech trends coming up 2021

Simon Archibald  0:13  
Thanks Sam,  Thanks for having me. 

Sam Mager  0:16  
Oh, well, it's been over a year now. So you can no longer use the new boy excuse. But for those who don't know, you've been in the channel now for 20 something plus years, and you know, all sides of the fence. So reseller distribution vendor pretty much all hats and now back in reseller land. So good to just tell people about your history, I guess how you gravitated into the Krome family?

Simon Archibald  0:41  
Yep, sure. So yep, full circle, actually. So came out of university into distribution, which was an interesting baptism of fire, shall we say. But it's a good grounding, actually, for where I am now. So moved from distribution into my first partner, while I kind of worked through from first a salesperson through to sales director in about 10 years, there has been no real kind of again, looking to move at a time. But I was starting to work with Dell quite a lot, actually, on a number of deals I was working, and they were really kind of making a bit of a steal in the market at the time, got talking to a lot of the team there. And that culminated in joining Dell in around 2007. And joined there in the segment direct team for a couple of years, more in the acquisition market, so winning new business into Dell at the time, which was great. And again, no real wish to carry on and move around. But my channel background was known about, and we were just as Dell were building out a channel model. And so I was approached, then to join that team and help continue to grow that, stayed there for 10 years, managed Krome off and on for pretty much all of those 10 years. So pretty much almost from day one. So it really resonated actually. So actually Krome, from meeting you guys initially, very much resonated with my initial partner I used to work for. So same kind of ethos, the culture is great. And it really kind of hit home from a this is kind of where I belonged. I made no bones about it. I think, at some point in my career, I would be at Krome. And yeah, you kind of got me after the few years of trying 

Sam Mager  2:22  
We beat you into submission. 

Simon Archibald  2:24  
I haven't looked back since. Absolutely that.

Sam Mager  2:27  
So obviously, you know, as we just discussed, you've been in all elements of the channel distribution, reseller vendor, etc. Not wanting to age you, but for quite some time. In that time. Yeah. Have you have seen that, I guess that model, that market evolve, what's changed, for better and for worse?

Simon Archibald  2:44  
I think distribution actually, first of all, there's been a real consolidation I think I've seen from, from the distribution point of view, there's a, there's been a few of the let's call the mainlines, the mainline distributions that have been growing, they have been taking a bit of a steal of the market, which is great, because again, as a partner, it gives us kind of less avenues to have to go to, to that one-stop shop type mentality. And partners, really I've seen, I mean, again, worked at a couple now, but managed, must be nearer near on 100, maybe in my time at Dell. And the ones that have really succeeded, you see are the ones that are kind of the more niche players. So they have a real value offering. It's not the 'how much can you save me on a laptop', type conversation, it's the real customer pain point, or addressing the pain points and developing a solution around that. And again, that's, that's I mean, we've had a very good year this year and the climate we've gone back into again for the second time, perhaps but that's what we do very well, from a Krome point of view, we really have addressed those pain points. And that's what's really attracted me to it.  I think that's the changing point, though. It's a different level of partners. You know, there's been some big names out there that have not done so well, in the last few years.

Sam Mager  3:59  
It's an interesting point, you've worked for Dell working with Krome. And now that shoe is on the other foot if you like, how are you finding, I guess that experience being that way around?

Simon Archibald  4:11  
Yeah, it's it's an interesting dynamic actually being on the other side of the fence. To be fair, or it's not one that's alien to me, to be very honest with you, actually, some of the frustrations obviously, I can now recognize, but no, look, I mean, Dell, and again, that they wouldn't mind me saying this, because again, it was analogy we use when we're there. But that was a massive tanker, you know, it's very hard to slow down and turn around, you know, the bit I always liked about working for a partner. And obviously now, working for another partner is the agility, the flexibility and the speed to action as well. So it's kind of what you miss out on maybe being part of a much bigger machine, which is fine. You know, it's horses for courses, you know, and everyone's got their place. But so I'd say yeah, I'm keen to really build upon, hopefully, what I started to build when I was at Dell and the collaboration conversations between the likes of Krome, and Dell. And really, from a Dell point of view, the benefit to someone like a Krome to them is the just the reach that we can give them, you know, so rather than building out a, another, a for Dell, it's a whole team of, let's say, in our case, you know, 10 or so salespeople instead, you know, who can go out there, and drum up that business. So, so yeah, from a, from a vendor point of view. Yeah, I think certainly like I said in my experience, Dell, but others who may be solely partner-led, that's the sort of mentality there. So, you know, I'm keen to sort of drive that and keep driving that message, I work closely with, let's say, my, I suppose new me, should we say, in helping drive that and it's all around who you talk to what you're talking about. But again, it's driving that message back of not trying to say the pound on a laptop here and there, because there's many that will do that. It's more about actually, we can, we can find net new business for the likes of a Dell, because we're having the right sort of conversations at the right level with the right customers as well, too. ,

Sam Mager  6:02  
Clearly, we're doing this over Teams, and to be fair, most of our interaction over the past year has been remote via Teams, or Skype, or Zoom, or whatever the customer needs us to be using on that day, you've obviously had the challenge of coming on board to Krome, knowing us knowing the environment and the people that obviously helped. But the challenge of then, you know, the initial lockdown, and suddenly you're managing a team remotely and having to use these collaboration tools. Well, very much so to collaborate, but to really manage people and I know you're very hands-on, you're a 'door's always open kind of guy', how have you found and addressed the challenge of having to use this type of medium to actually manage a team? So effectively?

Simon Archibald  6:47  
So it's interesting, actually, so I, the dynamic for me moving from a Dell to a Krome was, I've been a remote work for 12 years, I've always been on the road and never actually within an office. So to move back to the office environment actually was quite exciting to me at the time, because you just missed something not being in an office, you know, you can't quite put your finger on it, maybe. But yeah, and from a management point of view, it's most definitely easier to manage a team because you can kind of see where they are. Yes, okay, there's been a, I've got a few remotes anyway, you know, you know, Manchester office, so there's an element remoteness there anyway, but it's turned into a, a different dynamic, obviously, from a management point of view. So, again, after a year and a little bit now of being in with Krome, and obviously, I've known Krome for many years, and some of the characters that I've inherited shall we say, kind of know-how our how some people work, so and some people will operate independently. And you know, for well, there'll be great to come in from wherever they are. And some, you know, need a little bit more of a cuddle every now and again, you know, so, but I think really the positive message there is a, you can tell, I mean, I'm on the phone most of the time, but also finding mostly actually Skype/Teams calls as well as face to face. Because I think that personal touch is important still. 

Sam Mager  8:02  
It's important to keep that culture element and that team morale building, right, especially as we're not like, so you miss something not being in the office,  the kind of water-cooler culture, whatever you want to call it, there's definitely something missing. So I think actually encouraging that bit of downtime at the end of the week, and, you know, putting work down and encouraging them to talk about what we do on the weekends and so on, keeps that morale and team together, you know.

Simon Archibald  8:26  
And I'm just conscious of that, I personally may be used to it, you know, I've done it for a few years, but it's, it's a, it's a big mind switch to go from an office space, I did it 12 years ago. And you know, from office space to, to a remote role, it's very lonely sometimes, you know, so

Sam Mager  8:41  
Having not done that, you know, I can tell you that it's a definite paradigm shift, you know, I used to do one day, a week, maybe at home rest of the time in the office. And to go to full remote is it's a big change. So

Simon Archibald  8:55  
It's also a trust thing as well. And it's, it's all about, I suppose, changing your outlook really form a and again, I'm not a stat-based manager, should we say but it's, it's making sure that we really are moving to an outcome-based model, really, because you can't see who's around and who's on what phone call at what time like you could do in the office. And I don't want to start really sort of delving into that. So we need to, again, it's a maturity thing, I suppose we're in a trust thing to take that to the next level. And, and just being aware that it's, it's, you know, as long as we get the outcomes we want, there's going to be an element of flexibility, you know, there are people, with younger children at home, who may need help there, and there's some with aging parents who need to help with the caring of that as well. So very conscious of people's backgrounds. And again, part of what I'm doing now is really understanding some of their personal requirements, some of the backgrounds so I can really kind of maybe tailor how and when and how I talk to people, you know, so and so a lot of that,

Sam Mager  9:51  
That's fair. To wrap up, sort of very quickly look forward to 2021. What are some of the technology trends, you know, clearly collaboration, remote, working, that's not going to change? It's very interesting to see some of the vendors now coming to market with Everything-as-a-Service. We've had Software-as-a-Service and Platform-as-a-Service and Infrastructure-as-a-Service. They've been around for a while. But some announcement by the likes of Dell around literally Everything-as-a-Service. And personally, I'm seeing it's kind of they're, they're trying to hook everyone into this subscription model, put the hooks into you, you're there for life, good or bad. But it's interesting how that's now evolved. We're moving away from this CAPEX into OPEX. And that is further evolving more and more and more, just be interested in your take on how you see that evolving through the coming year?

Simon Archibald  10:36  
Yes, good, actually, I mean, I've always been trying to sell the OPEX model for years anyway, with that sort of leasing solutions. We say Dell was starting to have the Storage-as-a-Service, Desktop-as-as-Service conversations. But now I think certainly from a Dell APEX released recently, it's Everything-as-a-Service, Exclusive have bought on their on-demand Everything-as-a-Service as well. So yeah, I think Everything-as-a-Service, we've noticed with Microsoft licensing as well. So again, they're moving to the CSP model, which is subscription-based, as opposed to the many years way of buying Microsoft has now changed or changing. And I think it'll be interesting to see. So I think, from our point of view, yeah, Desktop-as-a-Service, Compute-as-a-Service Infrastructure as-a-Service is still going to be there. It's just now it's going to be how it's going to be slightly consumed, I suppose slightly differently, and how we move to that everything-as model and then how we take that in house. Yes, we're getting closer with the, and we are close with vendors who are also offering this anyway. And we'll look to kind of, I suppose support that solution. But we'll also look to build out our own solution around our own Infrastructure-as-a-Service platform, our Backup, DR-as-a-Service platform, and then how we can maybe integrate that into can actually, Krome provides an Everything-as-a-Service platform, on the back of some of these collaborations we are talking about.

Sam Mager  11:51  
Absolutely, the nice thing, as you say we actually sit across, we are very much a Dell house, we make no bones about that. But we are fairly vendor agnostic. If you look at the rest of our portfolio, and we can take what Dell offers and we can take what Palo Alto offer, and we can take X, Y and Z, and wrap that into our managed services model, and actually do that full IT-as-a-service. But we can also layer on top support, very fortunate in the way our business is structured that whilst our sales team is not small, our technical contingent is very large. So we can actually layer on top of what they're offering me some good technical support and technical knowledge. So yeah, I'm really excited to see where the, as a service model grows and expands to think it really suits our business as a model. I think we can augment what the vendors are offering quite nicely. And yeah, really excited to see where it goes in the next year.

Simon Archibald  12:41  
Oh, no, I totally agree with that. I think what we're all about and, and like I said the niche partners out there, I saw all about recurring revenue. So adding to that recurring revenue stream, almost, if we can, you know, turn the lights on Monday morning, and half of our numbers done then that that's the ideal goal, there. So moving to that subscription model works for us. And then like you said, and this is, we could go on all day about the value of partner brings over and above others, but yet support our 24 hours, 24/7 support we offer on top of that, is that and I hate to say that one throat to choke, it really will provide that. So yeah, I think I think that on top of that, I think the cloud conversation will continue. So and again, I think we're at the point now I think Hybrid is probably here to stay. So I think Hybrid, Hybrid-Cloud is the answer around cloud. And then within that, and within the storage area, I think as a whole, I think AI and Machine Learning is going to really take the next step up on that as well. And that's been talked about with all sorts of things as autonomous cars and whatnot. But I think really will fit probably more than that to kind of where to store your data and how to store your data and that sort of thing. So I think that's where AI and that sort of thing will probably affect us probably more from there. But I think really AI Machine Learning, I think Everything-as-a-Service and, and that Hybrid Cloud message. I think that is probably going to be 2021 for us. But we've got to get into I suppose really, hopefully this over the hump that we're now about to face hopefully as well. 

Sam Mager  14:09  
So thanks Simon, thanks for your time. Thank you for joining us on Krome Cast Tech it out. Please remember to like, comment, subscribe, and share. If you'd like to see us to discuss please leave that in the comments below. Helps us shape our content for this podcast. Thank you