CompTIA’s Todd Thibodeaux on How to Thrive in the Next Year

It’s fair to say that first half of the year has been life-altering for many. Not only do channel partners and their customers face disruption and uncertainty, but “business as usual” is a thing of the past. The “new normal” has taken its place. Despite the disruption, partners need answers and a path forward. Todd Thibodeaux, president and CEO of CompTIA, will help them out during his keynote presentation – “5 Ways to Survive and Thrive in the Next Year” – at 11 a.m. on Sept. 10. Thibodeaux is a featured speaker at the upcoming Channel Partners Virtual, Sept. 8-10.

CompTIA’s Todd Thibodeaux

There are some constants that partners need to be aware of. They include finding talent, marketing, new verticals and cybersecurity. There’s also providing best-practice and remote-work resources for customers.

Channel Futures: Give us a glimpse into this list of five things partners can do to survive the pandemic. Let’s start with acquiring talent — no easy task even prior to the pandemic.

Todd Thibodeaux: Hiring slowed down substantially in the early part of the pandemic. However, businesses still have turnover and they still need to hire new people. I’m going to talk about good ways to find individuals when you might not be interviewing them face-to-face — when you don’t get the chance to meet them and they’ll be working remotely from day one.

Finding and retaining good talent is very important.

CF: Other areas you’ll talk about are vertical markets and marketing.

TT: A lot of businesses will go under as a result of the pandemic. What if you specialize in certain verticals that were particularly impacted, such as hospitality and restaurants. Or places that were shut down for any period of time. Where will new customers come from?

Partners have to think about if they’ll continue to look for business in the same areas. Will you have to look for new verticals?

And how will you prospect and market your company during a time where you might not have face-to-face meetings? How do you effectively use social media? How do you use your web presence? And how can you use your network?

CF: Cybersecurity has really come to the forefront as more employees work remotely.

TT: Cybersecurity issues related to all this remote work, means having that toolkit, having best practices and even training for your customer’s employees, if you weren’t doing that already. That’s something customers will certainly ask for.

Partners are also getting requests for best practices around remote work. It’s not just about cyber, but what type of equipment should you have at home? What broadband speeds will your employees need?

Partners can be a real resource to their customers having the knowledge in these areas. Session attendees can expect to walk away with actionable takeaways.