technologyreseller.co.uk 25 INTERVIEW and audit purposes. This also helps our clients achieve quick ROI and cost savings, with an easily accessible source of AI-ready and labelled data that can be used to draw insight and meaningful conclusions for those big business decisions. TR: How is AI impacting your business now and likely to impact your business in the future? AC: We are actively looking into AI use cases and working out how we can incorporate and embed AI directly into our operations to make it easier for our people to access resources that make them more efficient. That said, I think it’s important for people to remember that AI isn’t a silver bullet that can immediately solve everything. We know that if businesses are to exploit the opportunities presented by AI, underlying data needs to be usable, accessible and in a position to allow AI-driven algorithms to accurately learn from it. The key message is that the ship needs to be in order before organisations spend significant sums on AI-driven solutions. TR: What do you see as the biggest challenges facing channel businesses today? AC: It’s a twofold challenge. There are so many different vendors trying to compete for wallet share inside an organisation that it becomes a question of priorities. It’s vital to focus on specific outcomes that give the best return for the business. The second biggest challenge is more from a global vendor point of view and that’s the danger of over-simplifying quite complex technologies. AI isn’t an out-of-the-box solution, it takes time and planning to get right. Alongside use cases that can help them internally, the channel needs to define specific problem statements for customers so that they can make the most of the power of AI. TR: Could vendors and distributors do more to help overcome these challenges? And if so, what? AC: Personally, I think that over the last five years or so vendors and distributors have really focused on engagement and have put a lot more value at the front of the sales cycle, with access to content, resources and additional technical support, rather than at the end which was the traditional stage of engagement for further support. They are now helping to drive some of those conversations at the very beginning and finding out how to solve customer challenges from the outset. I think that is quite a marked shift in the industry and is proving to be a positive step forward. TR: If you could change one aspect of your job, what would it be and why? AC: Ideally, I would like to spend 100% of my time with our customers and partners, helping them solve their challenges. That’s the most rewarding and engaging part of my job, and it’s those relationships that last for years. The problem then would be working out which tasks to drop, because they all need to be done!
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