Article in CRN/RE following the results of MERLION IT Solutions Summit.
MERLION held the first large-scale conference for partners of VAD (Value Added Distribution) direction – MERLION IT Solutions Summit. And the word “large-scale” is not an exaggeration here: over 900 managers and leading technical specialists of Russian and foreign IT companies, and their clients, took part in this event.
Opening the event, Aleksey Abramov, Chairman of the Board of Directors of MERLION, confessed: “It scares me to imagine the price for a minute of working time for all those who gathered in this room. And we appreciate it very much that you were able to find the opportunity to spend such an expensive resource, like two whole working days, not to the problems facing your companies, but to communication with us. And this is twice a pleasure, because the event you are attending is not yet permanent, we are holding it for the first time, we are trying out a new format”.
According to the organizers, the participants of the summit are: the representatives of vendors, system integrators, experts of customer companies related to state organizations, the financial sector, oil and gas and fuel and energy industries, large industrial, commercial and service enterprises.
Continuing the speech at the opening, Aleksey Abramov said: “Everyone who gathered in this room, perfectly knows that our world is changing very quickly under the influence of new technologies. But we also know that new technologies do not arise from nowhere and do not come to customers themselves. They are brought by people, both working in IT companies, and customer employees who want to introduce new working tools, increasing the efficiency of their companies, raising productivity. And we understand that all these specialists are busy people, and none of them wants to waste time. Therefore, for us as organizers it is very important that everyone learns something new at the conference, gets a boost for their business, look at their business with new eyes, understand the changes in technologies, and in business processes. And we, in turn, as intermediaries between manufacturers, partners of the second level, and therefore the consumers, are ready to support you in this process of getting acquainted with the new information. At this event we collected what we tried, understood and are already implementing. And with the help of our vendors we can help you not only understand the huge number of new products which enter the market, but also sell them, bring them to life”.
Such a large-scale event could not take place without the assistance of the world's largest IT producers. The key partners of the summit were more than 30 vendors of corporate IT solutions, which presented the latest developments in the exhibition area of the event (MERLION Expo). Platinum partners of MERLION IT Solutions Summit were Dell EMC, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, IBM and Microsoft. Premium partners are: Intel, Lenovo and VMware. The function of the main technical sponsor was taken by HP Inc.
It should be noted that the sponsors' participation in the event was not limited to the stories about the benefits of solutions during the exhibition. An equally important contribution to the conference program was reports on the trends and prospects of the IT market at the summit's plenary session, where top executives from IBM, HPE, Dell EMC, Microsoft spoke. A common theme, which brought together the key reports, was the digital transformation of business and its features in Russia.
For example, Diego Segre (Vice President, IBM Global Business Partner), described the worldwide process of business modernization as the “digital evolution”. According to Diego, companies will survive in such evolution (regardless of their size and profile of activity), if they are able to adapt faster and more efficiently to the changing market conditions.
Roman Gilg (Channel Sales Manager for HPE Enterprise Group in Central Eastern Europe and Israel), emphasized the growing importance of close interaction between technology users and vendors and their direct partners. This relationship allows us to more accurately determine the real value of IT solutions for a particular business and achieve synergy in the process of making the most effective use of new approaches and technologies.
Philippe Fosse (Vice President, Channel Sales, Western and CEE, Dell EMC) noted the growing role of the Internet of things and a new global technology platform on the basis of which the companies develop service lines of business.
Peter King (Sales Director, Small, Medium and Corporate, Central and Eastern Europe, Microsoft) focused on the fact that the effectiveness of using IT directly depends on how far the implemented IT solutions are suitable for end users, taking into account the level of their preparation, motivation, work responsibilities and other factors.
MERLION executives also noted the importance of the human factor in the process of digital business transformation. Yulia Pechnikova, Director of the Business Development Department of VAD of MERLION, stressed that the effectiveness of IT solutions directly depends on the expertise and experience of the team - both technical and business experts. And the role of VAD-distributor is to aggregate the most advanced experience with the help of vendors and transfer it to the partners, the system integrators and their customers.
The key analytical reports were presented to the summit participants by the President of the European consulting company DT-Global Business Consulting, Daniel Thorniley (Danny Thorniley, President, DT-Global Business Consulting GmbH) and director of analytical company CONTEXT Viktor Ivanov (Country Director, Russia & Baltics, CONTEXT). Elena Semenovskaya, Director of IDC research in Russia and CIS shared with listeners interesting forecasts. According to her assumptions, by 2018, 45 % of IT-directors (in the world) will be focused on the process of platformization, using the develop practice for fast development, reduction of costs and flexibility of the enterprise. Moreover, according to her data, the importance of cloud technologies for end customers will change in the near future. By 2026, 40 % of companies will provide digital services with the help of industrial clouds. By 2018, the majority of middle-tier providers will provide brokerage services to competing cloud services. In addition, in 2021, the providers of cloud services will put into operation 2.5 times more capacity than the companies of customers. And by 2026 - six times more. And another interesting forecast: by 2021, top-5 vendors will control 75 % of the world markets IaaS and PaaS.
The in-session program of the conference was divided into two streams. The first was focused on representatives of business units, vendors, business development managers, and IT executives. The second one was for technical experts.
Within the framework of four commercial sessions, 26 reports were submitted by experts from 20 companies. Three technical sessions included a total of 22 reports from representatives of 17 companies.
The greatest interest of the audience was caused by reports on “cloud” topics: hyperconverged and program-defined infrastructure; virtualization and VDI; internet of things; security of cloud environments, private cloud management and migration tools in public-cloud; high-speed data transfer and data availability in the cloud.
Moreover, the issues of data protection, new approaches and technologies of vendors were active to ensure integrated security, also within the concept of “smart city”.
Megatrends in the area of implementing infrastructure projects were discussed, from issues of financing such works to the construction of cloud-based platforms of the new generation, creation of innovative solutions for data processing centers and IT infrastructure management systems.
A separate topic was the optimization of costs in construction of engineering and network infrastructure which meets all modern requirements in the field of security, reliability and efficiency.
In two specially equipped rooms for technical personnel and engineers, 15 laboratory works and demonstrations of solutions by IBM, Microsoft, Veritas, HPE, Dell EMC, VMware, Veeam and Unify were organized.
More than 250 personal meetings took place during the summit. Specifically for the event, mobile application MERLION was created, which allowed the participants not only to follow the program, the schedule, announcements, but also to communicate in both group and private chats.
As the organizers note, the summit was prepared within the framework of implementation of one of the key points of MERLION strategy – development of Value Added Distribution. Therefore, its main goal was to support the business of partners of system integrators and strengthen the position and image of MERLION as the leading VAD-distributor.
“Development of VAD-direction is only possible through strengthening partnerships with the world's largest IT manufacturers and Russian system integrators”, comments Julia Pechnikova. – At the event we gave them the possibility for direct interaction. Thus, we are emphasizing the main role of VAD-distributor, which combines the experience of world and Russian companies, which is necessary for successful digital transformation of business. As a traditional distributor we already provide our partners with logistics, financial, and marketing support. As VAD-distributor we add the resources of our technical center MERLION Engineering, the competence of our own technical experts, and their colleagues working in manufacturing companies”.
We asked Yulia to answer a few more questions for our publication.
CRN/RE: Why was it decided to focus on VAD direction and tell partners about it?
Yulia Pechnikova: Global digital transformation of business is happening in the world. And we tried to gather all the key participants of this process at the Summit: the leading system integrators, IT manufacturers which are technological leaders in their fields, and their customers from different industries. The interest shown to the event by both Russian and foreign partners, which make this event an international one, showed that our initiative was more than timely.
CRN/RE: What trends would you bring to special attention of your partners? What topics, discussed at the summit, do you consider to be the most important for the partners?
Yu. P.: The main trend is the already mentioned global process of digital business transformation. Its success depends on how accurately all three parties involved in this process (and this is business, IT manufacturers and system integrators) will be able to select and implement appropriate IT solutions for a specific situation. We divided the sessions to those for the representatives of business units and for technical experts. The topics were similar, but the framing was different. The greatest interest was caused by cloud technologies: everything connected with this area – from security and management of the cloud environment, to the effectiveness of use certain IT platforms, services or products in the clouds. Clouds are already a reality. At present, the components of IT infrastructure are beginning to be perceived by both users and manufacturers as elements of an internal or public cloud”.
CRN/RE: How is the situation developing in the Russian IT market in 2017, in your opinion? What difficulties, and what positive trends do you see in the modern market?
Yu. P.: The market is starting to really come to life. Customers are showing increasing interest to large-scale, complex projects. With this, they have to be implemented in new conditions, when IT budgets, the timing and quality of implementation are controlled far more strictly. With this, there is a process of abandoning non-core business directions. It applies not only to enterprise customers, but also to IT companies which concentrate on specific areas very important for them, improving their expertise in selected areas and increasing their market share. Due to this, the importance of VAD-distributor is growing, it acts as a link which ensures the complex implementation of projects.
CRN/RE: Please tell us about the results of the summit. How was the event perceived by the partners? What do you think, did the format of such large partner conferences become obsolete?
Yu. P.: Organizing the summit, we set a specific goal – to support the real business of integrator partners. The level and composition of the summit participants was selected on the basis of this task, so that the delegates had the opportunity to conduct productive negotiations at the desired level. Moreover, it was important for us to show our Russian partners that information from vendors, global IT companies at the summit is really provided straight from the source. Therefore, we invited those foreign top managers who represent IT manufacturers in their key foreign forums. All of them responded to our proposals. As a result, the reaction of both foreign guests and Russian partners was unanimous – the summit was highly appreciated, both in terms of organization and effect for business. Such a high appraisal shows that we managed to gather the right audience – the people who came to develop their business and strengthen their partnerships. For them, the importance of summits like ours is still very high. It is also worth mentioning, that MERLION IT Solutions Summit, in the opinion of the participants themselves, stands out among other events. Many well-known industry forums and conferences have become the events held “for the sake of appearance”, when it’s only important that these events are held.
Our Summit is not a record of success. It is rather a “dress rehearsal”, the key stage in preparation for the launch of joint projects.
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