CompTIA ChannelCon Closes with Focus on New Growth Opportunities for IT Channel Companies

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Aug 08, 2014, 09:30 ET

PHOENIX, Aug. 8, 2014 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- ChannelCon, the premier partnering and training event for the information technology (IT) channel, concluded its runs here this week with a clear message for channel companies.

A wealth of growth opportunities are available to the companies who can adapt to changing realities of today's marketplace.

"There is more change and more opportunity happening in the next six years that there was in the past 20," Brooks L. McCorcle, president, emerging business markets, AT&T Services, Inc., said Wednesday during the ChannelCon Channel Chiefs panel. "We need to challenge ourselves to create new and different ways to go to market."

The theme of this year's conference – produced annually by CompTIA, the IT Industry Association – was "Connect to a Smarter Future." Throughout the week speaker after speaker stressed that there are many opportunity areas for channel firms – in mobility, cloud computing, managed services, voice and data convergence and other areas.

But attendees were also told that success will not be determined by the technologies that are sold, but by the problems they fix.

"The customer is aware of the possibilities of technology," said Lawrence M. Walsh, CEO and chief analyst, The 2112 Group, during a Pardon the Interruption debate. "The successful solution provider will be the ones who are delivering true business services. If you can deliver on those solutions, you're going to win."

For the first time in its history, much of the ChannelCon content was available simultaneously to the on-site attendees in Phoenix and to a virtual audience online. Between the two, more than 1,800 technology solution providers, channel executives, technical IT professionals and others engaged in the IT channel participated in three days of premier vendor-neutral channel training and education.

Many of the sessions will be available soon via video-on-demand on the ChannelCon website at http://channelcon.comptia.org/agenda.

Introduced at ChannelCon

CompTIA used the ChannelCon stage to launch several new initiatives:

The Channel Primer consisting of customizable training materials and other content that CompTIA vendor and distributor members can use to train staff members who work outside of the channel on the fundamentals of the indirect IT sales channel,
A new toolkit of more than 30 customizable marketing resources designed specifically for the needs of IT channel companies, and
Quick Start Session to Business Agility, a 60-minute presentation on strategic and tactical moves for staying relevant in a changing channel.

ChannelCon 2015 will be held Aug. 3-5, 2015 in Chicago. Updates on next year's conference will be available at CompTIA Events.

CompTIA is the voice of the world's information technology (IT) industry. For more information, visit CompTIA online and on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.

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