It’s been a challenging few months for many companies, with a lot of changes being dropped upon the business world. But even with all these changes, one thing has remained steady—our position on the Accounting Today VAR 100 list.
The Accounting Today VAR 100 2020
Considered to be a “who’s who” of VARs, The Accounting Today VAR 100 is an annual ranking of the leading value-added resellers based highlighting the successes of the largest VARs in the nation who have the resources and expertise needed to satisfy and support a wide range of clients.
The Accounting Today VAR 100 is focused on revenue from business management software over the past year. Accounting Today notes that “All revenues are FY 2019, in U.S. dollars. In cases of ties in revenue, the firm with the larger staff was given the higher ranking.”
You can view the report here and the list here.
Key Trends Highlighted in the Report
As a report released each July, the Accounting Today report looks both at the successes of companies listed and the trends shaping the year. Here are just some of the topics discussed in their article.
It Goes without Saying, The Cloud is for Real
Do we even have to mention that the cloud is the de facto option?
In 2018, it was “The End of the Cloud vs. On-Premises Debate,” in which we noted that [the] long-standing debate appears to be over. Today’s VARs have moved away from selling on-premises software because clients have stopped asking about it.
2019 asked “Are you tired of hearing about the cloud yet?,” noting that even slow to react industries were on board.
“One such example of this is the cloud for the food and beverage industry, an industry built on stability and who was mentioned as an “industry [that] might take a longer time to adopt new technology.” Now, according to the report, most industries will catch up with moving into the cloud — as the cloud becomes more globalized, it will be unavoidable.”
2020 is no different. In fact, many companies looking at ERP saw the lockdowns as the perfect time to push harder into the cloud—with good reason. Not only would a move help them better equip employees for remote work, but management teams saw this as a bigger picture opportunity.
With more and more teams needing to work remotely, many have found that having an on-premises accounting solution was no longer a plausible option. In this, it resulted in our next trend, the accelerated push to the cloud.
Some Clients Pausing, Others Accelerating ERP Journeys
One of the most interesting things to note about the last quarter is the dichotomy of how ERP clients have reacted. As noted in the report, with the pandemic putting strain on businesses, many clients have opted to delay, reschedule, or put off ERP implementations. Especially true in industries heavily reliant on field work—oil and gas, industrial field services, and the like immediately pulled back.
However, the opposite is true for many companies too. One executive noted that “we also have a number of clients who see this time as an opportunity to leverage increased availability of their management teams to pursue ERP projects during these challenging times.”
Understandably, both client trends make sense, but when you look at it, the ones who can make a move at the moment have found that a move to the cloud is an easy decision. Training is easier to run when workers have time on their hands, the immediate and easy access to a complete software makes the job easier, and implementation is essentially a contactless experience.
Looking to learn more? We recently released a whitepaper titled Why a Move to the Cloud is Mission Critical and are excited to present best practices for pivoting to a new reality on July 23. Register here.
Broader Service Offerings Empower Clients
Another continuing trend is one that has been present for a while in the reseller space—broader service offerings designed to offer a holistic approach to technology. From Microsoft Teams and Microsoft 365 services built to connect remote teams and encourage collaboration to consulting services, VARs are leveraging their diverse teams to empower clients.
Your ERP Partner: Meet MIBAR
The last few months have been a challenge for many companies, but as the world begins to pivot toward ‘normalcy’, it pays to get ahead of the curve. Following our appearance not only on the Bob Scott’s Insights Top 100 VARs, we are excited to share our strong showing on the VAR 100 as well. Get to know more about the work we do with NetSuite, Acumatica, Microsoft and more, and get in contact with us for more information.
