Industry Voice: More Capability, the Same Relationship: What the New SoftwareOne Means for Partners
More Than a Rebrand: New Opportunities for Partners with SoftwareOne
When Crayon announced its transition to SoftwareOne, the message was straightforward: two respected organisations were coming together to create a stronger business. Now comes the question partners are asking: what does this mean for me?
The answer is simple. Partners gain access to more.
More scale. More expertise. A stronger global ecosystem. Without losing the relationships, people and partner-first approach that helped build success in the first place.
As the combined organisation moves forward under the SoftwareOne brand, the focus remains firmly on helping partners grow. The difference is that they can now do so with the backing of a larger global business spanning more than 70 countries, supported by 12,000 employees, 12,000 partners and more than 1,000 OEM relationships.
Or, as SoftwareOne Asia Pacific President Vikas Bhonsle puts it: "Your success remains our success."
Scale Through SoftwareOne’s Scale
For many partners, customer opportunities are becoming larger, more complex and increasingly international. Whether supporting cloud transformation across multiple regions, helping customers manage software estates globally, or delivering AI initiatives that span countries and business units, scale matters.
The evolved SoftwareOne gives partners access to a significantly larger organisation with broader geographic reach, greater resources and deeper relationships with major technology vendors.
This creates opportunities for partners to pursue larger deals, support customers across more markets and deliver projects that may previously have been beyond their reach.
Rather than building those capabilities independently, partners can leverage the scale already available through SoftwareOne. As SoftwareOne's Managing Director of Real World Technologies Andrew Yager puts it: "SoftwareOne's deep relationships with leading technology vendors and extensive specialist expertise enable us to take on more complex customer challenges with confidence. Their global scale and proven delivery capabilities help us grow beyond our own capacity, giving our customers access to world-class resources, technical knowledge, and innovative solutions that drive better business outcomes.”
As customers continue to consolidate suppliers and seek strategic partners capable of supporting end-to-end transformation, that additional reach can become a meaningful competitive advantage.
Deeper Expertise for More Complex Customer Challenges
Technology conversations have evolved dramatically over the last few years. Cost optimisation remains a top priority for CIOs. At the same time, organisations are looking to move beyond AI experimentation and deliver measurable business outcomes. Security, cloud modernisation, data strategy and governance have all become board-level concerns.
Addressing these challenges requires specialist skills across multiple disciplines. That is where the combined strengths of SoftwareOne and Crayon create new opportunities for partners.
SoftwareOne brings recognised expertise in software asset management, cloud, advisory services, FinOps, data and AI. Crayon contributes its long-standing channel focus, enablement capabilities and deep understanding of partner success and, together, partners gain access to a broader bench of specialists, services and knowledge.
The approach aligns closely with Bhonsle's vision of helping customers "optimise to innovate" by reducing operational costs and reinvesting savings into strategic initiatives such as data and AI.
Instead of engaging multiple providers to address different stages of the customer journey, partners can draw on expertise that spans the entire lifecycle, from software optimisation and cloud migration through to security, data platforms and AI adoption.
A Stronger Global Ecosystem
Technology ecosystems have never been more important. The most successful partners are those that can connect customers with the right expertise, vendor relationships and innovation opportunities at the right time.
The new SoftwareOne expands those possibilities.
Partners become part of a broader global ecosystem that includes leading technology vendors, hyperscalers, specialist experts and partner organisations around the world.
That creates greater opportunities for collaboration, co-selling, knowledge sharing and joint innovation.
Importantly, the philosophy behind those relationships remains unchanged.
Bhonsle describes partners as "an extension of our team, not simply a distribution channel,” and that mindset continues to underpin the combined organisation's channel strategy. The goal is not to create distance between SoftwareOne and its partners. It is to create more opportunities for partners to grow through stronger connections and broader access to expertise.
That commitment to partner success is one reason many partners are enthusiastic about the next chapter. As Dominic Gopal, CEO at Hypernix Sdn, explains:
"Most distributors sell licences. Crayon invested in our people through upskilling programmes and hackathons that actually made us better at what we do. That's what 'Distribution Done Differently' looks like in practice, and it's why we're excited for the next chapter with SoftwareOne."
Access to More
At its heart, the transition to SoftwareOne is about addition, not replacement.
Partners gain access to the scale of a $20 billion-plus global organisation. They gain deeper expertise across cloud, software, security, data and AI. They gain entry into a broader ecosystem of vendors, specialists and opportunities. What they keep are the trusted relationships, collaborative culture and partner-first approach that helped create success in the first place.
More capability. The same relationship.
For partners looking to help customers optimise today and innovate tomorrow, that combination may be the biggest opportunity of all.
Find out more about what this transition will mean for partners:
Find out more about what this transition will mean for partners: https://www.softwareone.com/en-sg/now/crayon-channel-is-becoming-softwareone-in-apac-partner-update
This article is sponsored by SoftwareOne.