I had a chance last Friday to give a talk to about 75 members of the NSAC. What a great group. This group covered the Midwest. 5 states to be exact.
I was amazed at the amout of technology this group used. Examples include;
Sharepoint
Point to Point wireless
SSL VPN Concentrators
VPN's
Remote monitoring
These are just a few of the technologies they were using. I did get a chance to hear a presentation from some of the IT people from 3 of the Cooperatives. One thing that they did have a common theme was that they were purchasing hardware from CDW, PC Connection and other online sources. The competitive part of me wanted to ask them why they weren't buying from a VAR? I learned where they purched hardware in the hallway before thier presentation.
During their presentation to the group, they had one theme. Things like security, Citrix and email servers are somthing that they leave to VAR's. Infact they went to say that Cooperatives should consider their VAR as part of the supply chain. Just like buying and selling grain. A necessary part of their business. This was powerfull for me to hear that this is what our customers are looking for from us! Am I spending enough time on our solutions that meet customers needs? Not on old school hardware selling? I think so, but definitely need to keep being reminded.
I do want everyone to know that my presentation was successful and I did get several compliments on explaining what some consider complex topics in ways that most of these people who run Cooperatives could understand. I covered;
Security "Not just a firewall" Addressing what is between the ears.
TaaS, a win/win for everyone
PC's, not just a commodity
Disaster Recovery. Is it worth it?
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