What key trends are driving as-a-service offerings?
In our 2023 Channel Trends report, it was revealed that when asked about the future of the Technology Channel over the next 12 months, 82% of respondents ranked customer experience as the most important to their business, closely followed by company culture at 80%.
This demonstrates the opportunity for Technology Channel businesses to establish a ‘Total Experience’ to enhance employee and customer satisfaction. By improving experiences for all stakeholders and implementing this transformational strategy, Channel leaders can build more resilient business models.
But organisations are currently facing great uncertainty with inflation, supply chain disruptions, geopolitical tensions and the threat of COVID-19 variants just a few of the concerns that are troubling business leaders.
By turning to as-a-service offerings, businesses have the agility to scale up and down, have greater visibility over forecasting and still remain a resilient business.
Equally, the increase in consumerisation of Enterprise IT has brought a fundamental change in the way that technology is used in the workplace with a focus on user experience and convenience. Technology improvements, cloud storage, SaaS applications and reduced cost of devices are all enabling new ways of supporting Hybrid workers wherever they may be located through a full “device swap”. Users are best served, up and running faster and have much better experience with a simple device replacement, that can be fully provided on an “as a service” basis,
All this in turn enables businesses to provide that essential customer experience, building their reputation and allowing them to stand out from the competition.
With shifts in customer preferences towards as-a-service purchasing, we can also expect to see ongoing synergies between software and hardware, with emerging technologies blurring the lines between the two in 2024. As a result, hardware vendors will have the opportunity to create new business and revenue models to address future customer pain points and needs.
