Dive Brief:
- Technology Channel Sales Professionals is preparing to launch a certification program for technology advisors, the trade association announced last week.
- The nonprofit completed a proof-of-concept program with 30 individuals and has drafted a code of ethics, TCSP President Bill Power told Channel Dive. The official certification program will likely start in Q4, according to Power.
- The 501(c)(6) organization is working with an attorney specializing in nonprofits and certification to ensure it is fully compliant with standard certification practices. “By going this path, you agree that we can investigate you,” Power said.
Dive Insight:
Launched six years ago as a lobbying group for TAs and technology services distributors, TCSP is providing services and standards inside the industry.
When a consulting firm for the Universal Service Administrative Company was caught taking a sales commission for a request for proposal a rural healthcare organization paid it to manage, the Federal Communications Commission banned all vendor commissions for rural healthcare program customers. The mandate led many carriers to shut off agent commissions overnight. Although TAs are typically not USAC consultants, they were lumped in with them.
“We kept saying, ‘We're not the bad guys. We're not those consultants. We're the good guys that are helping these people save money and find solutions,’” Power said.
TCSP lobbied the FCC to create an exemption for TAs and filed an amicus brief in the FCC v. Consumers’ Research Supreme Court case last year. It is preparing a campaign for an upcoming FCC proposed rulemaking open comment window.
“They're asking if channel sales executives should be considered consultants, so they've opened the door for us to just carve ourselves totally out of that,” Power said.
In the meantime, Power and his co-founders see their certification program as an important hedge.
“If you've got a program, you at least have an argument when some higher power comes along and wants to regulate you,” Power said. “You can argue we're regulating ourselves.”
That’s exactly what board members of the much older, IT service provider-focused trade association GTIA said at their annual ChannelCon last month.
“Regulation is coming, and it’ll either be forced upon us, or we will build it,” GTIA CEO Dan Wensley said.
While the GTIA is developing standards for IT management and AI governance, TCSP is focused on ensuring that partner sales of IT and telecom are above board.
Certification programs require legal legwork. Power said TCSP is making sure its terms and conditions are bulletproof.
“There's a big liability minefield you have to navigate,” Power said. “If you certify somebody and then decertify them for some reason, if you don't have a good basis for why you did that and the process through which you went, you've got a lot of legal exposure.”
For ATC of Ohio President and CTO Nick Enger, the program reflects the broader evolution of the TA market out of transactional telecom and IT sourcing.
“The best advisors are helping clients navigate complex decisions across cloud, security, AI, CX, network and the broader technology ecosystem,” Enger, who is a TCSP board member, told Channel Dive in an email. “With that evolution, the channel also needs to continue modernizing how it defines professionalism, transparency and accountability.”
Self-regulation efforts in the channel continue to proliferate. The Technology Advisor Alliance implemented a code of ethics last year. ATC of Ohio CEO David Goodwin helped develop the code of ethics for the now-inactive Technology Channel Association in 2010.
“Supporting legitimacy, professionalization and modernization in the Channel is something we take very seriously. It differentiates us while contributing to the rising tide lifting all boats, or at least for those who are serious about ethics, growth, putting clients first and building into our ecosystem,” Goodwin told Channel Dive in an email. “Those who are in it for sustained growth, moving up-market and the long haul would probably agree. Maybe not as much for newcomers or those simply trying to make a buck.”
