A recent survey by Swan Independent Research suggests that half of SMEs would talk to their local IT supplier when considering communications purchases however very few of them sell and support the products their customers are interested in.
SIR surveyed 12,000 senior decision makers of SMEs between 10-100 employees. 56% of respondents said they use a local IT company to support their hardware and software and 49% said they would talk to local suppliers first when considering replacing or upgrading their office communications.
Evidence suggests that local IT companies are not making best use of their trusted advisor status. Often as a result of bad experiences with telcos and ‘mucky minutes’ they tend to avoid selling connectivity and telecommunications. In this ever-converging world this is letting telecoms dealers into their market with new hosted telephony and hosted desktop products.
IT support companies are proud of the technical expert status they enjoy with their customers and do not want to be involved in products that they either don’t understand or don’t trust.
IT dealers need to partner-up with a trusted supplier who can supply all of these new products to their customers ‘in a box’, pay them an on-going commission and manage all the support and billing for them.
Jola is recruiting IT support companies to do local cabling for them as Jola dealers.
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