For the first time after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Channel Partners Europe Summit returned to London. Partners, technology providers, distributors, industry experts and thought leaders from the EMEA tech space were present at the Summit.
The Summit brought the partners face-to-face and honored the EMEA winners of the 2022 MSP 501 during an awards gala that also included the EMEA winners of the Next Gen 101.
Speakers Ian Luckett of IT Experts and David Stokes, the leader of IBM’s EMEA partner ecosystem, started the day with optimism despite the impact of the stock market selloff, the war in Ukraine, the rising interest rates, and soaring energy prices and inflation. Next, a panel of 2022 MSP 501 winners talked about their businesses sustaining and them not seeing any signs of a slowdown from their customers.
“I am making the case for optimism,” Stokes told the audience, citing strength and channel opportunities in cloud, security, AI and data management, among other sectors.
“I am making the case for optimism,” Stokes told the audience, citing strength and channel opportunities in cloud, security, AI and data management, among other sectors.
His remarks motivated the crowd. “There is a massive opportunity around hybrid cloud in this next stage of digitization,” he said.
Before Stokes took the stage, event host Luckett addressed the partners and said that they must look to fill the gaps in their portfolios and the only way to do that was to find the right partners who could drive growth.