Last week, we hosted the third webinar in our bimonthly series focused on technology convergence and what it means to the channel community (watch the recorded webinar here).

In, “How to Sell Cloud as a Business Technology Adviser: Part 1”, TBI Director of Sales Adam Knudsen and Sales Trainer Dave Landsberger discussed how partners can serve their customers as a technology navigator, guiding them through the cloud landscape.

With cloud in particular, according to Knudsen and Landsberger, there are three things channel professionals must understand about their customers that will enable them to offer the strategic and consultative technology solutions that will set them apart from their competition:

TBI First Master Distributor to Join New WOW! Business Partner Program

ENGLEWOOD, Co. – October 22, 2014 – WOW! Business, a communications and cloud service provider, has signed a channel sales agreement with TBI, the nation’s leading third-party distributor of technology solutions. The agreement makes TBI the first third-party distributor to join the new WOW! Business Partner Alliance program and fortifies the regional communication service provider’s ability to meet growing demand from business customers in the Midwest, Mid-Atlantic and Southeast U.S.

When our Channel Managers review different product and service options for partners, a multitude of considerations come into play. In this article, we’ll discuss two different pricing models that influence the recommendations we make for data services: Distance and Local Access and Area Transport (LATA).

Dave Michels is one of my favorite industry pundits. Behind the curmudgeonly exterior resides a very shrewd mind with often key insights. He knows intimately where technology has been and where it is going, often ahead of the “in the know” pack.

Dave is especially adept at sounding the death knell for those industries he views as behind the curve as well as woefully behind the times. In his sights for quite awhile has been premises-based communications.

Dave’s most recent bow shot, “Premises-Based UC is Over”, lays out several specific reasons why the channel should look hard at moving its customers to cloud communications solutions.

The “consumerization of IT” is a fairly simple idea. In short, it amounts to a reversal of roles.

It speaks to the impact consumer-originated technologies are having on enterprises. Increasingly, IT is no longer dictating to employees the hardware platforms and software applications that must be used to conduct business. Instead, the technology consumers themselves – sales, marketing, the back office – are in charge of decision making and telling IT to make things happen.

Come on in. The water is just fine.

Not sure whether to get into the telecommunications game? Possibly a new analyst report will help make the case.

Gartner Inc.’s 2014 “Magic Quadrant for Unified Communications as a Service” indicates that, for the first time, UCaaS has gone mainstream.

SCOTTSDALE – September 03, 2014 – Telesphere, the nation’s leading provider of fully hosted VoIP and cloud communications services, announced that it has partnered with Telecom Brokerage, Inc. (TBI), one of the nation’s largest third-party technology services distributors. As Telesphere’s newest channel partner, TBI’s network of more than 2000 agents and VARs will now offer Telesphere’s secure, feature-rich cloud communications services to business customers across the U.S.

SAN DIEGO – June 17, 2014 – Voxox®, the most comprehensive cloud-based rich communication service for consumers and businesses, announced that the company has signed a distribution partnership agreement with leading technology services distributor, Telecom Brokerage, Inc. (TBI). TBI will offer solutions from the Voxox business services portfolio with a focus on SIP Trunking, along with offering other popular Voxox business solutions, such as Hosted PBX, VoIP termination and origination, wholesale SMS, audio conferencing, and the company’s new virtual PBX service, Cloud Phone.

SAN JOSE – June 04, 2014 – 8x8, Inc. (NASDAQ: EGHT), a provider of cloud-based unified communications, contact center and collaboration solutions, today announced the establishment of a partnership with Telecom Brokerage, Inc. (TBI), one of the nation’s largest technology services distributors. This new channel partnership enables TBI’s 2000+ agents and VARs to offer 8x8’s industry-leading enterprise cloud communications services to business customers worldwide.