Your *TBA Consultant. We deliver the IT European SMB market to you.*Trusted Business Advisor.

 Lucien Moons and Pierre Mercier

Collectively, the US and Canada account for 58%* of the global $1.3 trillion IT industry. Of this $750 billion in purchases, $320 billion worth is sold to businesses through 85,000 Reseller** organizations; about $300 billion worth of this is purchased by what we define as SMBs, with $240 billion flowing through Resellers.

We define SMBs from an IT Channel perspective. Companies with less then 10 employees tend to purchase IT products from the superstores, or online using price as the primary criteria in product selection. Larger enterprises that have a CIO as part of the management team, use Resellers as a source for purchasing IT products at a low price.

Between the really small companies and the large enterprises, are the 10 million evasive, hard to reach SMBs with about 10 to 500 employees. Vendors sell products, whereas SMBs need technology-based solutions – solutions that give them a strategic advantage in the daily operation of their business, as well as help reduce costs and increase revenues. Much in the same as enterprises depend on their CIOs, Resellers create a symbiotic relationship with SMBs whereby, instead of being viewed as a supplier, they have become a Trusted Business Advisor (TBA).

Trusted Business Advisors

TBAs provide SMBs with recommendations on what solutions they require and then determine what they need, purchase the technology on their behalf, install it, ensure system integration, train employees and provide 7x24x365 service and support to keep the technology up and running. Simultaneously, TBAs refresh and update the technology.

SMBs do not want to know how the products work or why; they just want someone they trust to make sure they have the technology-based solutions they need. TBAs very effectively replace the FUD factor (fear, uncertainty and doubt) with a comfort zone.

The only effective way to reach, service and support SMBs is via their Trusted Business Advisors. TBK core competence is delivering the SMB marketplace to Vendors. We do this by reaching, educating, enabling, motivating and ensuring TBAs have the business knowledge, tools and vehicles required to effectively reach and service SMBs.

Since 1980, we have developed and implemented cost-effective, strategic, go-to-market programs for 350 IT companies. This experience has allowed us to accumulate a wealth of intellectual channel marketing knowledge in direct, channel, hybrid, retail, etail, managed services and SaaS go-to-market models.

We leverage our relationships, experience and knowledge on how to reach, recruit, engage, motivate, educate, enable and collaborate with TBAs to help Vendors enhance their channel relationships and increase their sales.

Using a systematic process, we provide Vendors with the structure, experience and contacts required to:

• Define channel objectives
• Evaluate current channel marketing expenditures
• Perform a SWOT, gap and needs analysis
• Position, segment, target and profile customers, resellers and distributors
• Develop a customized, strategic, complete end-to-end channel marketing plan based on the Channel Sales Cycle: recruiting and engaging, enabling, collaborating with and maintaining strong relationships with appropriate Channel Partners to help them build their business and yours
• Align objectives and audiences with distributor-funded and corporate marketing programs
• Define parameters and criteria for evaluation of current activities and ongoing performance measurement
• Implement partner recruitment, engagement, education and motivation programs
• Create and execute all channel marketing programs, including: launch strategies and rollouts; Channel product seeding, awareness and branding programs, demand creation and lead generation programs; partner and/or customer retention programs; etc.
• TBK and Computer Profile Channel Enablement Program:
  1. VAR Recruitment
  2. VAR Training
  3. VAR Enablement
  4. End-User Leads
  5. End-User Marketing
  6. Measure performance and track back results to ROI based on individual program components and/or back to the performance of specific partners

*All statistics quoted are best estimates developed by TBK based on a combination of research, industry knowledge and extrapolation.

**References to Resellers include VARs, System Integrators and System Builders. Retailers and etailers are not included.

Five big tech innovations coming in the next five years: IBM

As we turn the calendar to the next year -- and decade -- IBM is unveiling its fifth annual "Next Five in Five," its perspective on five innovations it believes will change how people work, live and play over the next five years. Several years ago, when mobile phones were purely for voice, IBM projected the strong uptake of mobile devices and smart phones and 'carrying your business in your pocket.' That's all with us now. So bearing that in mind, what do IBM's soothsayers predict now is in our future?

Batteries will Breathe Air to Power our Devices

This means that batteries in electronic devices will be smaller, lighter and last 10 times longer than they do today.

"In looking at the history of battery improvements, we've seen about 7% improvement on a year to year basis, and that clearly doesn't match demand," said Don Campbell, Chief Technology Officer for Business Analytics at IBM. "We've been very seriously working on all aspects of the technology to get better performance. For certain batteries, carrying a device around all day, that simple motion of walking around with the device can be leveraged to bring energy back.

"We are also looking at ways to take ionization out of the air chemically, to take advantage of what's in our atmosphere," Campbell said. "We have some ways to go there. Eventually, a battery that never runs out is the goal, but if we get 10 times the life we do today, this will still change how we use these devices."

You'll Beam up your Friends in 3-D

No, it's not quite Star Trek time, but with the rapid advancement in 3-D technology IBM says you'll soon be able to interact with your friends through 3-D holograms -- in real time -- from your phone.

"Some of these trends are already starting in the consumer space," Campbell said. "3D TVs are becoming a potentially popular item. And the addition of holographic technology, which would eliminate the need for special glasses, will change the adoption rate."

Holographic technology involves the reproduction of the splitting and scattering of light to represent a 3D image.

"You can see that light from different angles, move your point of view, get a much more natural feel from the perspective of what you are looking at," Campbell said. "From an enterprise data perspective, it's adding a third dimension of data without having other data items get in the way. We are attuned to looking at information in 3D, and when we can turn that on for people, they get a lot of value back."

3D Projection in this format is likely to come out of tabletop devices, as what you see in 3D appears on TOP of the event, not instead of it. For straight commercial applications, Campbell said to look for this in interactive kiosks -- "kiosks with 3D navigation capabilities rather than an awkward projection into 2D, which is what we look at today."

Computers will help energize your city

The philosophy here is already apparent in IBM Smarter Planet initiatives, but there's more to come, Campbell said, specifically energy being harnessed from computer heat, then used to heat and cool buildings.

"In the data center, 50% of the energy is cooling the data center, and a lot of that heat is just lost to us," Campbell said. "A micro approach to passing water across the chip, pulling heat out of the chip and instead of getting rid of it, capturing, extracting and repurposing it, can lead to something as simple as driving a coffee maker in the lunch room, or as massive as heating a building in winter."

You won't need to be a Scientist to Save the Planet

People are walking sensors, and in five years, sensors in your phone, car, wallet and even your Tweets will collect data that give scientists a real-time picture of your environment. A whole class of "citizen scientists" will emerge, using simple sensors that already exist to create massive data sets for research.

"We have all kinds of ways now of putting in place a sensor that will collect information," Campbell said. "People carry devices with GPS chips, motion detectors, accelerometers, that can shut down hard drives about to crash. If we can leverage that to learn other things about our environment, we can really gain an advantage."

Campbell doesn't think privacy issues would become an issue here.

"People would agree to be part of this, and wouldn't give up any personal information," he said. 'The law now requires mobile devices to be able to communicate GPS location in emergencies, and this is no different than that."

Your commute will be personalized

This one sounds like GPS, but it goes much further, combining predictive analytics with real-time travel route information to recommend better ways to get to your destination.

"GPS tells me how to get from my home to the office, and traffic conditions, but what it doesn't do is predict for me based on all kinds of other things what things might be like as my commute commences," Campbell said. "For instance, it could predict how many parking spots in nearby garages are likely to be available when I arrive, so I know where to go first. And it might consider, if there is an event or a major disruption, if I should just take public transit, and redirect me to a drop -off place if that's the case."

Campbell said the limit of GPS is that it's not personalized.

"If you add more personalization and data sources, I think these devices can be much smarter," he said. "I'm happy to have GPS tell me how everyone should get from my place to work but what I would really like is to know MY information based on my preferences."

In summing up the philosophy behind the projections, Campbell said that predictive analytics is critically important in understanding how we use data in various firms, both structured and unstructured.

"Long gone are the days where we just collected information and spewed it back out into decision making reports," he said. "We need to understand how people communicate, using both trusted and untrusted sources, and distil it all down."

By Mark Cox