rhipe Hosts First Annual Evolve Summit 2021

rhipe’s Evolve Summit met with great success last week, with the overarching theme of the event being “Expertise that Empowers.” This complimentary partner summit brought together industry analysts, vendors, technical experts and business leaders from rhipe’s ecosystem, to explore opportunities for the channel.

Over the two days, rhipe explored key market trends and the services that are gaining momentum, along with the opportunities for partners to help customers find the right solutions for their business, improving efficiencies and productivity, while ensuring business continuity and governance processes. Among the featured key speakers were Microsoft’s Partner Technology Strategists, Dean Corcoran and Philip Meyer, Forrester’s Principal Analyst of Channel Partnerships & Alliances, Jay McBain and other industry leaders. Other insights included navigating end user budgeting priorities, exploring the latest technology from rhipe vendors, as well as advice on overcoming skill shortages and capability gaps.

Among the topics covered, there was much discussion regarding rhipe’s priorities moving forward, as well as the broader post-COVID landscape and how that is impacting the channel. rhipe has intentionally chosen to work with a few key vendors and growth markets. With over 500 employees across 14 countries, rhipe’s specialists cover many areas, all leveraging expert knowledge to help partners drive value and measurable outcomes for their customers.

Referencing the latest industry trends and market research from Tech Research Asia, the economic forecast is overwhelmingly positive.

“SaaS is a key growth area for providers. Differentiation is key: by skills, industry, product, geography or other market segments. If you can differentiate your business from those that are focused on price, that’s where the value goes to your partner and the margin goes to you,” said Dominic O’Hanlon, CEO of rhipe.

Several panel discussions explored how customer journeys are changing: evolving from being consumers of product to customers now seeking service and value. This means key priorities are also pivoting into automation, security, cloud migration, customer experience and digital transformation.

The business landscape of the future looks remarkably different. Many employees remain working from home or from multiple locations, using both personal and company owned devices. This has presented new opportunities for the channel, but there is greater emphasis on ensuring employees not only stay productive, but that their data and devices remain secure.

Panelists discussed how to protect customers’ data in an affordable manner, with a deep dive on SmartEncrypt, rhipe’s own encryption software solution, which enables organisations to easily encrypt files en masse, with simple encryption keys.

Jay McBain, Principal Analyst of Channel Partnerships & Alliances at Forrester, spoke further on this topic while discussing the Future of Operations and the opportunities for partners to help their customers digitally transform, to suit the new hybrid remote working environment.

“There is a changing future of work, with an upwards of 20 to 30 percent of employees that may never go back to a cubicle. They think of work as what you do, not where you go. The pandemic created a changing topology that is well matched to managed services and security providers, as companies look for partners to handle this new remote working environment and the security challenges that come along with it. We see the rate that companies outsource at least some or all of their IT increasing by at least double digits, if not 20 percent year over year, for perhaps the next decade,” he said.

All recordings and content from the Evolve Summit is available to watch on demand. Register here for access to these session recordings.