186Kloud & Glu Group joint venture to bring cloud communications service distribution and CX mentoring to the UK and European markets.
With the cloud communications market, post pandemic set to grow exponentially following the changes to the way many UK businesses are set to operate in what is being called the future of work and the hybrid workplace. The launch of a new cloud services distribution business, 186Kloud, alongside a joint venture with Glu Group, an award winning Advanced CX, Digital and Security channel practice, is set to radically change the way that partners can engage and benefit within the channel. Via the partnership, IT businesses will have access to a comprehensive enablement programme for their sales, technical and operational teams, in addition to a world class set of vendor relationships across EMEA for UC/collaboration, network & connectivity, data centre and security.
186Kloud having been five years in the making, is led by Stephen Hackett who was pivotal as the Pioneer of what has previously been referred to as the ‘Master Agent’ industry by launching the first business of its kind, as founding Managing Director of Intelisys Global back in April 2016.
Now in 2021, 186Kloud having taken the lessons and experience gained during the last five or so years, has launched into the European market phrasing a new description for the business model of Cloud Communications Services Distributor+ (or CCSD+). Stephen explained, “When we and US colleagues launched Intelisys Global back in 2016, we did so with the notion that it was time to take the successful 25 year old, US model and roll it out into Europe, by providing an eco-system of best of class vendors, who could be taken into customer conversations by business outcome focussed, vendor agnostic technology advisors, where the proposition would be embraced by vendors, selling partners and end customers. However, whilst we achieved much in the way of success, we learned that Europe, its contributors and markets needed special attention to achieve greater and even more success for the new European market”. Stephen went on to explain, “The term Master agent is for numerous reasons outdated. Today many people that we speak to ask us specifically what we mean by the + (plus) in our ‘what we do’ description and without missing a beat, describe how I believe that the industry demands that distributors offer and provide ‘more’ value and hence the phrase. Building an eco-system bringing together vendors and selling partners, where we believe they should be independently capable of creating magic together, might be the standard working model in the US where it’s said up to 40% of businesses in the top end of both the SME and enterprise sector use a technology advisor to help them select their preferred technology vendor. However here in Europe, partners, depending on their own level of market experience, value help with everything ranging from business planning and go to market execution, in-opportunity customer engagement support and not forgetting access to the most complete and continually evolving set of technology vendor relationships, education and advice possible. This in turn, will enable them to focus on their business, knowing that they are working closely with a partner eco-system. business incubator and advisory partner, intent on helping them succeed in becoming a trusted technology advisor to their own customers. We believe that this is 186Kloud.
To help position 186Kloud as the ambitious partner’s CCSD, we hit the ground with access to all of the leading vendors across the main three core areas that the industry addresses. These being in the areas of communications and collaboration, networks and connectivity, plus data centre and data centre services.
However there is a fourth area that we are convinced as more businesses become cloud first or increasingly cloud only, is set to become a primary technology conversation for businesses and that’s security.
When we initially looked at the security technology vendors that we had been working with and valued, we appreciated that we had some great vendor relationships for network security, but needed to extensively expand on our proposition and security eco-system so as to make sure we are able to provide the same level of end-to-end value as in the other technology areas. For this reason, knowing the challenge ahead that we would have to accomplish to achieve this, we chose rather than spending the 10,000 hours it is said needed to become an expert, that we would partner with an organisation who are and had done precisely this. Glu Group today provide the level of security excellence and expertise that we know our partners and their customers will demand in the days ahead, as businesses start to consider the opportunity and look to mitigate their associated risks as they look to how they engage in the new world of work and customer engagement.