SHOW YOUR EXPERTISE
Avanade is one of many solution providers exploring the possibilities ofAI technology when it comes to improving their operations and creating new ways to drive revenue. ‘ThrowYour Hat IntoThe Ring’ Kristy Davis, global director of innovation and AI at CRN parent The Channel Company, said AI adoption will become the dividing line between those solution providers that are successful and those that are left behind. “Throw your hat into the ring today because as fast as it’s moving, you don’t want to start from [behind] trying to figure out where it’s coming from” Davis said. “I study LLMs [Large Language Models] and all of what’s happening on a daily basis, and I am shocked at what’s happening. … It allows us to do things today that we couldn’t do before. So if I wait for that, I’m going to be beat to market. And that’s not a fun place to be.” Solution providers are now making choices about which vendors to team with as they build out their AI practices, with 55 percent saying they have selected Microsoft and 53 percent saying they have selected Microsoft-backed OpenAI, according to a survey of 300 respondents conducted by The Channel Company. Avanade—No. 33 on CRN ’s 2023 Solution Provider 500— was founded in 2000 by Microsoft and Accenture, No. 1 on the same list. Fittingly, it’s Microsoft technology that fuels the solution provider’s GenAI practice. Rotar told CRN that Microsoft’s copilot tools, which promise users the ability to produce content based on queries entered in simple, natural language, are “taking off like wildfire” as Microsoft rolls them out within its popular productivity and business applications. “I do think that this is going to go way beyond just productiv- ity and actually help us to gain new skills to maybe realize our potential. I know that sounds grandiose, but I really think that, if done right, the copilot concept in general has tremendous power,” he said. Of course, Microsoft isn’t the only game in town.Almost 41 percent of survey respondents named Google as the vendor they work with or plan to work with, and about 39 percent named Amazon Web Services (AWS). Meanwhile, about 22 percent of respondents named Nvidia as their partner of choice, and about 20 percent of respondents named IBM. AI IsThe ‘Magic Word’ For Customers The promise of AI has captured the imagination of solution providers’ customers, with almost 50 percent of survey respon- dents saying they have received inquiries from customers about using GenAI or LLMs in their business. Chris Bogan, vice president of sales at Mark III Systems— a Houston-based solution provider whose partners include
Nvidia and IBM—said that for customers, AI is “the magic word” for freeing budgets because of the potential to save money on operating costs. “If it’s tied to an AI project … it’s still blazing through,” he said. Customers expect that a project as transformative as AI results in cost savings, he said. Alexander Ewing-Shaw, partnerships manager at Sunrise, Fla.-based Chetu—No. 262 on CRN ’s 2023 Solution Provider 500, whose partners include Microsoft, Salesforce,AWS, Oracle and IBM—said customers from all industries want “to get their foot in the door in terms of AI.” Customer Data Is CriticalTo AI Gireesh Sonnad, CEO of New York-based Salesforce solution provider Silverline, told CRN his team is at work preparing customer data for AI. “AI is fantastic, but it needs data,” Sonnad said. “And it needs data in the right way in order to be able to do the right things for you. So get that right so you can drive the other stuff.” He also sees potential for Salesforce AI demand for middle- office workloads—risk management, corporate strategy—and not just the front-office sales and customer service functions that are more popularly associated with the vendor. For health-care and financial services firms, data is critical to operations, which is why these companies are early adopters of AI, according to Chetu’s Ewing-Shaw. “Being able to not only expedite processes but increase care when we’re talking about health care, you can seeAI being able to do that,” Ewing-Shaw said. “And in terms of lending [with financial services firms], we’re talking about being able to handle things such as credit-scoring platforms, lending platforms and everything associated with those industries.AI is applicable to all of that. It’s just a matter of really getting down to the minutiae and the details of how that can be applied to those platforms.” Solution Providers Building Their AI Expertise About 11 percent of respondents in The Channel Company’s survey said they already have full-scale AI and LLM imple- mentations internally. Meanwhile, another 11 percent haven’t yet considered the technology for internal use. The Channel Company’s Davis recommends solution provid- ers try out the technology internally and then think about the ways it could translate into an offering for customers. “This gives you a foray into the idea of how it works, what you need to do and, quite frankly, you can probably do this pretty easily with somebody on your staff that has an engineer- ing mindset,” she said. Mike Strohl, CEO of Concord, Calif.-based E360—No. 120 on CRN ’s 2023 Solution Provider 500, whose partners include Microsoft, Google and AWS—said the solution provider has formed an in-houseAI think tank, executive council and center of excellence.
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