Carolyn and Seth start a two-part series giving a preview of the upcoming State of the Channel report. In this episode, they welcome John Harden, senior product manager for SaaS at Auvik. John talks about the changing ecosystem of vendors and competitors in the IT channel, driven by the explosion of choice and the shift away from infrastructure and toward business solutions. Both customer experience and partner experience are becoming critical for solution providers as the focus of IT moves further away from a product-centric mindset.

In Career Spotlight, Ryan Anastasia talks about the need for technical specialists to also focus on business implications.