Pressure from Customers for Sustainable Business Drives Channel Effort

The IT channel must make room to make sustainable business a strategic priority — or risk losing customers.

That’s according to new research from IDC. The study indicates that having a sustainable business has evolved from a “nice to have” to a priority for customers. Indeed, organisations increasingly say the environmental impact of their IT is now as important as factors such as pricing.

IDC recently surveyed 700 IT buyers and executives across Europe as part of its new practice, European Technology for Sustainability and Social Impact. Six out of 10 European businesses cited sustainability as a very or extremely important business priority for 2020.

Important for the channel, sustainability is becoming a competitive differentiator. Close to 60% of organisations in Europe now include sustainability objectives into requests for proposal (RFP).

Two in five (41%) companies want help from their IT service partners to incorporate sustainability targets into products, services and solutions they deliver. Three in five (60%) see them as playing a crucial role in helping them achieve their sustainability goals.

Moreover, almost all (99%) recognize sustainability plays a role in selection of channel partners by both customers and by their business partners. Almost half (45%) believe this plays a critical role in that decision-making process. Fifty-four percent believe it plays a slightly important role. Only 1% believe it not to be important.

IDC Europe’s Margaret Adam

“Technology is and will be the means to achieve sustainability KPIs,” said Margaret Adam, associate VP, IDC Europe. “Over 50% of European companies state explicitly that they are currently investing into technologies to improve sustainability performance. Our research also showed us that there is a causal relationship between sustainability-targeted governance/investments and strong financial performance.”

Sustainable Business

The good news is that the partner ecosystem’s responses are encouraging, says Adam.

“In research conducted with 150 channel partners across Europe, we found 75% have recognized the importance of sustainability to their business strategy. Encouragingly, close to 40% are making significant investments to improve their profile as a sustainable business, with 35% implementing some measures to contribute to sustainable business practices.”

However, she notes that only 7% believe that sustainability is fully integrated into how they operate as a business.

“Given how much of a role sustainability is playing decision making, partners who are committed to being more sustainable need to ensure this is front and centre in how they position themselves. Of course, this needs to be backed with facts and credible propositions.

“They should think about how they can help customers embrace the circular economy, particularly those partners who are supplying IT equipment. Providing options for recycling of equipment should form part of their portfolio of services.”

Meanings Vary

Justin Harling, CEO at UK channel firm CAE Technology Services, believes what sustainability means in practice varies.

CAE Technology Services’ Justin Harling

“There is a level where sustainability appears to be included within decision making as a tick-box exercise,” he said. “This is either a tick for having ISO 14001 (the international standard for environmental management systems) and demonstrating the existence of the relevant supply chain policies, or for providing data on specific products and their inevitable improved performance. Neither are bad things to review, but greater action is required to ensure that a sustainability goal is achieved opposed to ‘green washing’ an RFP process.”

Harling believes you can measure the greater sustainability impact with …