Words Of Wisdom: 10 Hot Topics From CRN's Channel Chief Roundtable

Profit Margins

Dell's Frank Vitagliano

I think one of the biggest problems we have in the industry is overdistribution. This industry is driven by profit, no matter who you talk to, no matter how many discussions you have with business partners, whether they go back 30 years or where they are going to be 30 years in the future, it is all about profit. When you add and you have a proliferation of partners all going after the same space, what ends up happening is margins start to dissipate. Partners are making less money for the same amount of business that was out there. One of the things that I have been looking at is managing a partner ecosystem that ensures that partners can make money, and if you want to do that, it isn't about just going and adding a whole bunch of partners and just getting them to compete with each other so that they all make less money. We've got to be careful about that.