COVID-19’s Impact on the Channel: A Chat with Larry Walsh

The global COVID-19 pandemic has changed us: shaking us to our core as a nation and as individuals as we experience something that’s never happened in modern history. People are scared, people are uncertain, and we don’t know what’s going to come next.

That’s why, when speaking to Larry Walsh, CEO of 2112 Group today about the research they did regarding the pandemic’s impact on the channel, it was refreshing to hear a message of hope amid the constant stream of negativity coming at us – seemingly from every direction.

Our collective response to this outbreak has generally been fear, but we’ve also created a tale of a coming together to help each other. Companies large and small are committing to their employees that they’ll do whatever it takes to stay in business.

As we watch our global channel community, we are seeing partners deploy technologies almost instantly that will help organizations in every sector move their workforces’ home. They are bringing up remote offices across the globe. Employees are working around spouses and kids and animals, utilizing home internet connections.

Turning those unsecured home wireless networks into secure vehicles to ensure commerce continues has been the challenge. It has been MSP partners who have been able to get this done – members of the global channel community, our friends.

Several key findings in Larry’s COVID-19 Impact on the Channel Report give us a snapshot of what our channel leaders are thinking and doing in the midst of this pandemic. Listen to the broadcast now.

The outlook is promising and Q1 was in fact good. As we come back from this emergency during the second half of 2020, a lot will have changed. Life will be different. But our channel community will continue to thrive.

The life of a channel chief has always meant living out of a suitcase and sleeping in hotel beds more often than your own. This roadie life is special and the friendships we make are unique bonds we take everywhere we go.

At home, many of us have very special people who (as Larry joked) fill the fridge with food and make sure the laundry is done and now we have an opportunity to spend extended time with them when normally they wouldn’t see very much of us until December. This pause has created an opportunity to sit with ourselves, our partners, our children, our families, and reflect on life – and maybe find that we might want a little more balance going forward.

Even so, we are social beings and we long for connection. As fun as the virtual happy hours are, we will eventually want to get back together in person as channel friends to continue on with this beautiful complicated thing we call life.

As global business adjusts to the remote-work environment during the COVID-19 pandemic, clients are counting on service providers to help them adapt. Acronis has put special measures in place so service providers can ensure that their clients have the tools and resources needed to remain secure while being productive.

• We are offering service providers Acronis Cyber Files Cloud – our secure, enterprise-grade file sync and share solution – free until July 31, 2020 to enable their clients to quickly and easily transition to a secure remote work environment.
• For any new customers a service provider partner adds after March 18, Acronis will not charge the net new end customer consumption of Acronis Cyber Backup Cloud between March 18 and July 31, 2020, to enable those customers to strengthen their protection even though they did not budget for it.

Details of these response programs can be found here.