The return to office moves of major companies such as Amazon “could be an opportunity” for the channel.
That’s according to Canalys Founder Steve Brazier, who earlier this month touted return to office, alongside cybersecurity, as a potential hotspot for the industry at Canalys Forums EMEA.
His comments preceded reports that AWS CEO Matt Garman on Thursday invited employees who do not like Amazon’s new five-day-per-week-in-office policy to leave.
“If there are people who just don’t work well in that environment and don’t want to, that’s okay, there are other companies around,” Garman said during an all-hands meeting on Thursday, according to Reuters.
“It could create a major refresh cycle”
After beginning his keynote by calling time on 30 years of growth for the hardware channel, Brazier was determined to end it on a high note.
While return to office is proving a hot HR topic for channel partners themselves, the trend could also boost their order books by fuelling a “major refresh cycle” among their customers, Brazier said.
“Return to office could be an opportunity – thank you Amazon,” the Informa Fellow said.
“Dell is also following and trying to get its inside salesforce back into the office five days a week.
“One of the reasons for the slowdown is there’s not much point investing in offices if nobody’s there. And it could be if we get people back into the office there will be a major refresh cycle.”
In an otherwise downbeat keynote, Brazier also highlighted cybersecurity as “the gift that keeps on giving”.
“I would like to thank CrowdStrike for creating so many new opportunities for the channel that we can profit from. I hope that you’re all visiting your customers and talking with them about disaster recovery,” he said.
“More things happen in the office”
Last month, recruitment boss Zoe Chatley told IT Channel Oxygen that she has been in meetings with VARs and distributors where they are either implementing a return to five days in the office, or at least floating the idea.
In the same article, Robertson Sumner CEO Marc Sumner said he is seeing channel firms increasing office days.
“I do think more things happen in the office – collaboration happens more and there’s a massive advantage to that. That’s why companies are trying to push people back,” he said.
In September, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy fired off a memo ordering staff back to the office five days a week by 2 January. The change will help staff be “better set up to invent, collaborate, and be connected enough to each other”, Jassy said (pictured).
Despite reports to the contrary, Garman claimed in Thursday’s all-hands meeting that nine out of 10 employees “are actually quite excited by this change”.
