"Growth on the horizon”: Crayon SVP channel and strategy APAC on the cost of living impacts

Warren Nolan discusses the trends and opportunities he is seeing in the market.

As the cost of living crisis continues to impact organisations and partners alike, there may be a light at the end of the tunnel according to Crayon SVP channel and strategy APAC, Warren Nolan.

Speaking to CRN Australia exclusively, Nolan explained how he has been on the road speaking to partners and customers, getting the lay of the land and he says the sentiment seems to be positive.

“Growth was definitely on the horizon and being experienced in terms of [partner’s] businesses and their activity around their customers,” he said.

"On the whole, I didn't receive much negative feedback in terms of prospects for growth.”

Travelling across the country in his caravan, Nolan visited partners with the company’s local teams and said the mood was “very positive”.

“I came away feeling very buoyant about the prospect for growth, which the sales team were really happy to hear that I expected growth, because I've been speaking to partners, and they're all positive about what they see in the marketplace is opportunity,” he explained.

Despite the positive outlook, Nolan acknowledges that is still important to keep organisations prepped for cost of living impacts.

“As a result, they need to ensure that they're optimised as much as possible.

“Ensuring that they’re focusing their resources and their investments in areas that are going to directly impact their ability to provide a service that's going to ensure profitability for them and value to their customers,” he said.

Nolan explained how he sees Crayon helps their customers and partners through economic uncertainties.

“We can ensure that they are able to focus on those areas where they should be, if we can take the load when it comes to other things around administration, operations and optimisation of their business and licensing,” he said.

He noted that the Labor party winning the 2025 federal election may or not have an effect on the cost of living crisis.

“It's going to be interesting to see what impact the election will have, if any, in terms of whether it adds confidence or not,” he added.

Nolan explained that he is excited about the AI solutions he has created with customers to benefit their businesses.

“In our part of our business, we've been working with education and finance. The solutions that are being created using AI are exciting in terms of the benefit that they're creating,” he said.

“The thing I've always enjoyed about what we do, our customers create these cool solutions that impact people's lives. How people get access to medication and health services, how they impact on education and the way that people interact with the institution that they're attending, and get a better education.

“To see these solutions being created is one of the things that maintains the excitement about what we do and being a part of that,” he ended.

Crayon is a customer-first and vendor-agnostic IT consultancy with 50 offices in 40 countries worldwide.