New Alkira channel director Bruce Hockin lays out his partner strategy

The new channel head for EMEA and APAC tells CRN what partner profile he is on the lookout for.

Alkira has added a new face to its channel team with Bruce Hockin joining as channel director, international (EMEA & APAC).

Hockin is responsible for leading the channel globally (apart from the Americas) and will be predominantly focused around the UK and Middle East to begin with, eventually moving into Singapore, Hong Kong, South Africa, and Central Europe.

Speaking to CRN, Hockin details why he joined the network infrastructure-as-a-service vendor from Cequence.

“I’ve spent the last two roles in security and that market has always been a challenge around total cost of ownership and proving ROI to people,” he explains.

“People are looking to make efficiencies to drive significant cost savings, and that’s what Alkira does.

“It was a really easy conversation to have with Alkira because they're doing things that customers really need, and that was compelling to me.”

Immediate and long-term priorities

Describing himself as an outcome-focused person, Hockin explains how his short-term priorities centre on this.

“When you go to educate partners about what the opportunity looks like, vendors traditionally say, ‘this is our technology, this is who uses it’, and so on and so forth.

“They forget to focus on the outcome. And I'm an outcome-focused person, so I want to make sure we profile the right partners and identify who they are, because you don't want to waste their time.

“The onboarding process for partners is traditionally based around product, about technology. We need to change that to an outcome-based approach, helping partners understand how they can drive innovation and efficiencies within their customers.

“And do that on a per vertical basis.”

Looking more long-term over the next 12 months, Hockin will be focused on the geographic side of things.

“Long-term priorities are to align with the US, create a global programme that can engage partners, and automate that where possible.

“One of the big challenges right now for every vendor is to go where the business is and identify the hot spots.

“There's been a shift geographically in those markets, because normally you'd go with Germany, France, or the UK.

“But there are hot spots popping up all over the place, and for us it’s about identifying those and implementing an effective partner strategy within those regions, winning the hearts and minds so we can get early pipeline and early business for those channels and establish ourselves as the go-to vendor within that space and those geographies.”

One year in role

By his first year with the company, Hockin reveals he would like to have an effective channel where he’s helped partners understand how to identify opportunities and build a solid pipeline.

“I'm not looking to create complex structures. My main focus is around demonstrating that the market exists for our technology and solution helping partners identify, build those pipelines and close out some business.”

Hocking adds he also has a target for the number of partners signed and what sort of profile he’s looking for.

“We already partnered with the likes of Bytes and Softcat. But some of the boutique partners that have got specialisation around multi-cloud, SD-WAN and unified communications are all relevant.

“They have access to the right stakeholders and the right conversations. So, it'll be a combination of the larger players and the more boutique players that really drive value and innovation within their customer base.

“But also partners that have a Pan European strategy from within the UK as well. That's important to me, because I want to be able to create traction in other regions. France and Germany being the obvious places, it makes more sense to operate out of a Pan European role based in the UK than it does to try and force those relationships in the region directly, because that's pretty tough sometimes.”

‘We’re 100 per cent channel’

Hockin acknowledges the tough market Alkira finds itself in owing to financial challenges like budget saving.

“It's hard to drive engagement, and that has been reflected in the way that the channel is being used,” he says.

“We're starting to see more RFIs now for commercial businesses where that wasn't the case pre-COVID.

“For Alkira, it's about our brand. We are a start-up. People have to know about what we do, because what we do is incredibly innovative.

“And customers love us. We've got 100 per cent customer retention, and we're 100 per cent channel.

“We've got a rock-solid product that is exceptionally innovative that people don't know about. So a lot of my focus is to make the channel more aware of the value of what we're bringing.”