Alliant CEO Participates in CRN Article About AT&T's Channel Push

In March, Alliant blogged about being named a Platinum Partner in AT&T's new Partner Exchange Program (APEX).  We are still proud to be one of the founding Solution Providers that helped lift the program off the ground.  After nine months since the program's launch, this week CRN Magazine published a feature follow up article that provides an in-depth look on how the program is progressing with perspectives from AT&T and participating Solution Providers.  Alliant's founder and CEO, Bruce Flitcroft, was selected to provide some insight about how the program is contributing to the convergence of the Telecom and IT channels as well as Alliant's continued success. 

Check out the full article here: 

http://www.crn.com/news/networking/240162924/solution-providers-expect-great-things-from-at-ts-channel-push.htm

Winergy

by Vincent Gaudio

 

As any Alliant employee or customer will tell you, our passion for technology runs through our company like electricity, powering our services 24/7.  Although names and faces sometimes change as with any organization, the current continues to flow not only internally, but to our customers, who are an extension of our team.  With each passing year at Alliant, I gain more and more insight into how this intangible yet powerful force is generated.  Though the generator is complex and multi-faceted, it is powered by us, the members of the organization.

This week our executive management team held a Continuous Infrastructure Service™ (CIS) training session, and there was a lot of emphasis placed on inter-department synergy.  Not only in a technology organization, but in any organization, synergy between members is paramount and vital for success.  For the sake of scalability, an organization must naturally be departmentalized as it grows.  This is absolutely necessary; however, as the resultant groups of people’s functions are divided and subdivided logically, they tend to become divided in additional ways that can be detrimental to the overall mechanics of the group.  As a long-time member of the Alliant Managed Services team, I have learned the importance of every facet of an organization being in concert with each other in order to drive success.  This is a methodology that is often touted but rarely practiced.

Communication Lubrication

Each department is like a gear, and each member is a tooth.  Communication is the grease which is now easier than ever to apply to your own organization.  Whether your employees’ departments communicate via the Cisco Unified Communications suite, Webex Connect IM, Microsoft Office 365, or walk across the aisle and have a verbal exchange, coordination and collaboration are key.  The more collaboration methods put at your various teams’ disposal, the better.  Using Cisco Webex technology, our engineers are transported in minutes to the core of any network, increasing productivity and executing unparalleled time to repair.  Executives can arrange meetings with participants around the world from their own office in a matter of minutes, and all of the invitees can be present minutes later.  The same power can and should be used internally in your organization to bring inter-department communications to new heights.  Regardless of the products and services you bring to the market daily, all facets of your organization should always be talking about them and sparking new ideas around them.  No member of an organization can know too much about its products or services, and all members should be open and willing to seeing them from multiple angles.  This mindset drives passion and motivation, and passion and motivation drive this mindset.  This cycle is imperative to success.  “Sales training” sessions are a popular method for businesses to facilitate this type of communication and cross-training around their commodities.  I find that at Alliant, these types of get-togethers are much more productive than they are elsewhere, because the sales teams are not the only ones who learn in them.  We can and should all learn from each other constantly.  Members of our various other teams, such as marketing and sales operations, and even our CEO appear at these meetings and everyone involved contributes to accelerating the collaborative process that drives our success.

Util-IT

Why are organizations prone to poor inter-department communication as they grow? Human nature.  How has Alliant sustained, and even improved excellent inter-departmental collaboration as it grows?  One part of the answer is in how our business is organized.  Using the ITIL framework we are continuously streamlining via tried and true processes and procedures, which helps to drive our pre-existing collaborative mentality. This lends additional benefit and versatility to our various departments, as opposed to simply dividing them by function for scale.  Part two of the answer returns us to the “departments as gears,” metaphor.  Most businesses are driving communication between their various teams solely based on a set, repeatable, documented framework.  All of their gears may spin efficiently and at high speeds, which is great.  At Alliant the magic comes from the gears’ axles moving as well, causing them to make contact with all of the other gears around them. This difficult-to-engineer motion extends out to our customers.

Constant communication and collaboration is a cultural aspect that has always helped to power Alliant and keeps our customers’ services powered 365 days a year.  It is now playing a major role in putting us on the leading edge of utility IT via our CIS offerings.  We urge you to encourage the same habit in your organization, regardless of your role.

Alliant Technologies in the News

Alliant Technologies has been gaining a lot of buzz in the press lately and we’re proud to keep sharing the good news. 

Alliant Technologies Named Platinum Solution Provider as Part of AT&Ts New APEX Reseller Program

In February, AT&T announced the launch of a new reseller program – AT&T Partner Exchange (APEX) – and Alliant is pleased to have been chosen as one of the few innovative solution providers asked to test, refine and grow the program.  The goal of APEX is to expand market reach for AT&T and its partners while delivering IP Network, Cloud Solutions and Mobility Managed Services to more businesses.  AT&T is opening up its application programming interfaces (APIs) to allow solution providers like Alliant to develop their own customized solutions for a differentiated and better customer experience. 

Alliant recognizes that companies everywhere are moving toward a new operations model; controlling costs and linking consumption to company growth through Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS).  As a result, Alliant introduced a new way to consume technology with its Continuous Infrastructure Service™.  It’s designed to allow customers an easier way to purchase their infrastructure on a per-month, per-device basis and evolve that technology over time – the best part of the cloud.  This simplified and groundbreaking approach offers customers a better way to manage their IT infrastructure.

So when it comes to purchasing AT&T network, cloud and mobility services, customers can purchase the same network, access, and transport that they purchase from AT&T today with the added benefit of Alliant managing pricing, billing, provisioning, repair and monitoring as a turnkey ITIL compliant solution. This allows customers to enjoy the benefits of operating efficiencies including predictable cost, simplified billing and contracting, and a fully integrated solution that removes the customer risk associated with support for the network.

Alliant is delivering its enterprise customers brand new, fully managed Layer 3 MPLS networking solutions to support global voice, video and data applications.  We’re providing a simplified way to buy and administer global IP networks by utilizing the world’s best infrastructure to deliver these capabilities - the AT&T Worldwide Network.

Read AT&T’s press release and learn more about Alliant’s Continuous Infrastructure Service™ by visiting our website at www.allianttech.com.

 

Alliant Named to CRN’s 2013 List of Tech Elite 250

Alliant is proud to once again be named to CRN’s Tech Elite 250, a list that represents an elite group of IT solution providers that have invested in the training and education needed to earn the most advanced technical certifications in the IT Channel for data center or cloud.

In compiling the list, CRN editors worked with the UBM Tech Channel research group and a team of outside experts to define the most customer-beneficial technical certifications in the IT channel. These technical certifications have enabled solution providers to deliver the most premium products, service and support to their North American customers.

This is the third consecutive year that Alliant has received this honor.  In reaction to the announcement, Phil Towle, Alliant’s Senior Vice President of Sales, commented,

“Alliant Technologies is poised for rapid growth due to our Continuous Infrastructure Service offering combined with being a charter member of AT&T’s Partner Exchange Program. This IT-as-a-Service model will revolutionize how IT - namely, equipment and transport - will be procured and consumed.”

Learn more about CRN and the UBM Tech Channel by reading Alliant’s full press release here: http://www.allianttech.com/news/PR021413.php

 

Uncovering Value and Opportunity with Utility Computing

By Kevin Kelling, Alliant Technologies Engineering Department

These are exciting times. In today’s rapidly changing business climate and technology shifts, there are many new areas in which we can find value and opportunity. There are ways to change how we procure information technology, how we manage it, and how we consume it. If we were unable to change the features of our mobile phone service for the length of our contract, it probably wouldn’t work out particularly well for us. We want – and sometimes need – to change the features on our phone service – minutes, data, voice mail and more – to accommodate our needs which are constantly changing and in flux. Just like with cable or satellite TV where we might want to change the channels we subscribe to from month to month.

 

What if we could buy iPads in the same manner? Turning on and off fee-based features as we need them along with a built-in tech refresh (new iPad) every year or two? Better yet, what if we could buy IT services and components like this? Often times IT components are purchased in multi-year leases but we can’t easily change the properties of those components to accommodate what the business wants from IT and when they want it. As a result, the business has to wait, which seems a bit backwards. This is just one of the promises that utility computing holds for us – more flexibility in procurement; offering not just new financial flexibility, but allowing us to “dial up” what we need out of IT on-demand in order to support the mission of the business.

WHAT’S YOUR CORE COMPETENCY?

Chances are that electricity and phone service are not what your organization excels at – so you contract out these services to experts who can offer them for usually a much lower price than you could yourself. With the utility mode of computing, similar economic factors are at work.

Running a datacenter and getting all those networking, computing, and storage layers to work well together and then adding on disaster recovery and more is not inexpensive or easy. But when these elements of IT are contracted out to experts who can operate at scale, per-unit costs will often decrease. Perhaps more importantly, it allows you to increase your focus on what truly matters – your applications, your data, your processes, and of course your business.

THE NEW VALUE PARADIGM

VMware introduced a paradigm shift in IT when it made x86 virtualization an effective solution. Now instead of buying dedicated server hardware for each and every function, we can run multiple servers on the same hardware. The immediate impact of this server consolidation was a reduction in capital expense or CAPEX – there were fewer physical servers, less power and heat, and more ports and space in the datacenter.

But then something else started to happen. Because the servers were encapsulated in this software wrapper, IT departments found even more opportunities to save money in operational expenses, or OPEX. Servers could be provisioned in minutes and new opportunities appeared in everything from monitoring to backups and disaster recovery to significantly improve operations, administrative overhead and associated costs.

We believe that there are many new and emerging opportunities for OPEX improvement with utility and cloud computing models, where more IT elements can now be configured programmatically. This is what VMware refers to as the Software Defined Data Center (SDDC), in which more datacenter resources will be abstracted so that they can become programmable – even doing things such as provisioning a new multi-tier application with PCI compliance with just a few clicks.
  

 

However, things REALLY start to get interesting when you’ve built up operational efficiency to where you can begin to position the organization for agility. At this point, IT and the business are working together as strategic partners to get projects launched and completed in less time and with strategic focus and improved efficiency. Often times businesses know exactly what they want to do, but they fail in the execution as projects take too long and opportunities – and revenues -- are lost. By evolving the IT organization beyond a cost center and positioning the business for agility, an entirely new level of value becomes available to be captured.

YOUR STRATEGIC PARTNER

Alliant’s team of experts will work alongside our partners including Cisco, VMware, NetApp, Microsoft and more to help you take advantage of utility computing, so that you can focus on your core competency and position your organization for agility and success.

If a customer comes to Alliant looking to replace their aging SAN – we don’t just propose a new SAN. We take a step back and look at the bigger picture. What long term challenges exist in storage? What is your cost structure? Performance? Disaster Recovery? NetApp storage brings efficiencies that parallel the CAPEX and OPEX benefits of VMware and can be used to not only reduce costs, but to better position the organization for agility.

In short, we believe in synergy – that the value of multiple solutions working together is greater than the sum of the parts. This is why we believe it is important to have an experienced partner who can help you navigate through the waters of today’s dynamic business and technology climate.

At Alliant we couldn’t be more excited about the new trends and opportunities becoming available and helping our customers to achieve new efficiencies in IT, operations, and ultimately, their business. We’re working to make the vision of utility computing on-demand a reality, changing the way we purchase IT components and services, while helping you to focus on your core competencies- finding more opportunities for value from CAPEX, OPEX and Agilty.

Watch this space as members of the Alliant team will continue to expand on technologies, trends and opportunities for value.

Derek Young Appointed Regional Director, Sales and Business Development, New England

It is with a great deal of pleasure and pride that Alliant Technologies recently appointed Derek Young as the Regional Director of Sales and Business Development for the New England region. Young started with the company as an Account Manager in 2007. Since then, he has had a significant impact on the growth for Alliant in Boston and possesses strong industry knowledge as well as exceptional positioning skills. Derek sold the first Cloud Services deal for New England and has developed and will continue to lead the Business Development program for Alliant, which has produced over 120 new logo appointments in six months.

When asked to comment on the organizational change, Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing, Linda McGuigan, said, “At the end of the day, it’s all about strategic talent selection, empowering and equipping our associates to execute. Derek has an intensity for the business that will strengthen our relationships with our customers as well as our partners.” Alliant is confident that Derek’s leadership will set the tone for growth and expansion, not just in the New England region, but for the company overall.

For more information on Alliant Technologies and its leadership team, please visit http://www.allianttech.com/about-alliant/leadership.php

Bill Madison Named to Channel Partners 2011-12 Advisory Board

Channel Partners - a leading resource for resellers, aggregators, agents, brokers, VARs, systems integrators, interconnects and dealers that provide network-based communications and computing services - recently announced the latest members of its Annual Advisory Board. Among these members is Alliant Technologies’ Director of Channel Sales, William Madison.

Madison joined Alliant Technologies in 2010 and was tasked with developing and deploying a Channel Sales program. Alliant’s Channel Sales program allows agents and wholesalers the opportunity to expand their sales and current offerings through the use of Alliant’s diverse portfolio, including professional and managed cloud aggregation services.

“As a subscriber to Channel Partners Magazine and as a frequent attendee of the Channel Partners Conferences & Expos for many years, it is a great honor to have been elected to the Advisory Board. As the IT and Telco channels continue to converge, Alliant and its Channel Sales Program is uniquely well positioned to thrive in this type of environment,” said Madison.

Channel Partners board member duties include providing input on channel relevant topics, evaluating nominations for industry awards, contributing to editorials and blogs for the magazine and online resource, acting as an advisor for upcoming expo agendas and participating in expo seminars.

More information on Alliant’s Channel Sales Program can be found at www.allianttech.com/agents.

For further details on the Channel Partners Advisory Board, please visit http://www.channelpartnersonline.com/news/2011/08/channel-partners-names-2011-12-advisory-board.aspx.

Alliant Speaks at 2011 Channel Partners Conference

Last week, Chicago was home to the Fall 2011 Channel Partners Conference & Expo. Alliant was proud not only to be in attendance, but to have a featured position in the weeks activities. The event targets partners and suppliers from the Telco & VAR channel communities and is focused on providing quality and innovative programming that maps to the channels qualities, wants and business needs. It featured more than 50 hours of programming, nine hours of networking and more than 120 exhibitors and sponsors. More than 2,500 attendees packed the house to make it the largest Fall Channel Partners Conference to date.

Bill Madison, Alliant’s Director of Channel Sales & Partner Development was in attendance for the conference this year. Bill is responsible for developing channel partnerships that benefit from the IT and Telco industry convergence. Based on his current role with Alliant and his 16-year career in the Telco industry, it’s no surprise that Channel Partners asked Bill to sit on a number of panels and be a conference speaker. One dais he sat on, “Trading and the Transactional Model: A Road Map for Transformation,” was focused on migrating from transactional to solution sales from both a VAR and agent perspective. To read the reviews and learn more about the conference, visit the Channel Partners website for more information. To learn more about Alliant’s role in the channel, visit our Agent Website or contact Alliant.

The next Channel Partners Conference & Expo will be held in Las Vegas, NV in March of 2012.