Arcserve research reveals UK channel is switching gears to appeal to new generation of buyer

  • Digital transformation and today’s threat landscape usher in new channel strategies to uniquely solve data security and protection challenges
  • Shifts in end-user purchasing behaviour move the UK channel to adopt new marketing and sales approaches

London, United Kingdom – 28 October 2019 – Arcserve, the world’s most experienced data protection provider, today announced new research revealing a marked shift in IT buying behaviour and the resulting evolution of UK channel providers to keep up with today’s on-demand environment and increasingly prolific threat landscape. Cloud transformation and cyberattacks have become commonly discussed topics within the IT community as more business leaders push for digital transformation and ransomware soars to epidemic proportions. According to new survey results of 356 UK channel partners, nearly half (43%) revealed they are striving to keep pace with this new reality by adding offerings that go beyond traditional cloud backup to deliver multi-cloud and cross-cloud backup and disaster recovery. Moreover, in a move to address systems and applications that simply cannot go down, 50% said they are expanding their product offerings to include those that continuously replicate data to prevent unplanned downtime, while 49% expect an increase in sales for continuous or high availability solutions in the next 12 months. To add to this, the prevalence of cybersecurity threats has resulted in many seeking solutions which provide a multi-tier approach to IT resiliency by incorporating both backup and recovery with more extensive threat prevention technologies. Sixty-six percent of channel partners reported that solutions which combine data security and protection capabilities to detect and recover from ransomware (all-in-one security software, backup and disaster recovery) are important or extremely important to their end-users, even more so than solutions that incorporate artificial intelligence (AI) to predict disasters or those that automate compliance. “It’s clear the channel has been going through a significant amount of change over the last few years and must now meet a new array of needs,” said Vince Blackall, EMEA Channel Director at Arcserve. “They must not only meet business requirements of data security and protection but do so with a host of different buyers – often within the same organisation. If done correctly, this presents a unique opportunity for channel partners to remain competitive, yet nimble enough to meet the needs of customers large and small.” IT buying decisions are increasingly being spread horizontally across organisations such that line of business (LOB) executives are more frequently purchasing technology solutions independently from IT teams. To accommodate this shift in behaviour, nearly half (48%) of UK channel partners surveyed are adapting their marketing strategies to target these new buyer types, with 52% adopting a business outcome-based sales approach whereby the focus is on collaborating with both IT and LOB executives for procurement and implementation. “As customers’ buying behaviours become increasingly agile, it’s important for us to display flexibility, become more customer-centric and take a more holistic approach to the solutions we offer.” said Stephen Lawlor, Senior Storage and Virtualisation Consultant at Cristie Data. “We (and the rest of the channel) must be able to appeal to various lines of businesses that may have differing IT needs. The days of just simple back-up for the IT teams are fading, so we need to turn to vendors that can support us by providing solutions that meet both future and present needs.” Follow Arcserve

About the Research The research was conducted by Arcserve on July 2019 and included a total of 356 respondents in the United Kingdom. All respondents are channel professionals. About Arcserve Arcserve provides exceptional solutions to protect the priceless digital assets of organisations in need of full scale, comprehensive data protection. Established in 1983, Arcserve is the world’s most experienced provider of business continuity solutions that safeguard multi-generational IT infrastructures with applications and systems in any location, on premises and in the cloud. Organisations in over 150 countries around the world rely on Arcserve’s highly efficient, integrated technologies and expertise to eliminate the risk of data loss and extended downtime while reducing the cost and complexity of backing up and restoring data by up to 50 percent. Arcserve is headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota with locations around the world. Explore more at www.arcserve.com and follow @Arcserve on Twitter. ### Media Contact Leslie Keil Arcserve 952.903.5434 leslie.keil@arcserve.com