The Channel Company Expands Its Global Footprint With bChannels Acquisition

“With The Channel Company’s U.S. best-in-class channel database and bChannels’ unmatched global channel database, we are now the undisputed global channel leader for to and through partner marketing services,” said The Channel Company CEO Blaine Raddon.

The Channel Company is expanding its digital marketing services reach with the acquisition of bChannels, a 23-year-old global channel marketing powerhouse with a breakthrough AI-based precision marketing platform for to and through partner marketing.

The acquisition adds considerable international muscle to The Channel Company, with 150 employees focused on digital marketing services in the United Kingdom, Spain, Malaysia, U.S. and Australia along with what is considered the largest global partner database with over 660,000 partners across 208 countries, translated into 38 languages.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed. The Channel Company is the parent of CRN.

“With The Channel Company’s U.S. best-in-class channel database and bChannels’ unmatched global channel database, we are now the undisputed global channel leader for to and through partner marketing services,” said The Channel Company CEO Blaine Raddon.

BChannels’ ability to scale to partner and through partner marketing services globally is unique in the market, said Raddon. “Their business outcome AI-driven approach to data allows technology vendors to prioritize partners that will drive growth,” he said. “We are leapfrogging everyone in the industry by combining our data model with the bChannels data model and weaponizing that to drive business outcomes for our customers. They speak the same to and through partner marketing language we do.”

The combined company now has more than 400 employees worldwide with channel digital marketing services as the fastest-growing part of the business, said Raddon. “This investment in channel data is the next big wave for us,” he said.

BChannels founder and CEO Phil Gowing, who will become chief strategy officer of The Channel Company, said he chose to team with The Channel Company because of its ability to dramatically scale the global to and through channel marketing services business.

“The Channel Company understands the market and has the investment to scale this business,” he said. “The commitment is there to invest in our business to focus on the digital marketing and data needs of our customers to drive their business outcomes and provide a better ROI on their investment in the channel. The Channel Company understands data and how to drive business outcomes with that data.”

The key to bChannels’ success is, in fact, driving business outcomes for technology vendors around the world with its AI-based “precision” target marketing platform, said Gowing. That platform—which was launched 18 months ago—is the result of five plus years of effort and multiple millions of dollars in investment, he said.

The bChannels unstructured big data platform harvests “billions and billions of bits of data every day” and uses data analytics and AI tools to strategically target the right partners to drive growth in a certain product segment or technology battleground, said Gowing.

“We are incredibly precise at finding skill sets,” he said. “It is this precision targeting that differentiates us. We do this across the world. We are harvesting data in all these different languages and then we use massive translation tools for Japanese, Chinese, German, Korean and French and reconfigure back into English. So we have a massively proprietary translation engine.”

The Channel Company provides a robust set of content and creative digital marketing services that complement the precision marketing capabilities of bChannels, said Gowing.

“The Channel Company is bringing ready-made scalable services with creative, content, consulting and research,” he said. “The synergies they are providing are going to allow us to provide an end-to-end scalable service globally. That is a big deal for technology vendors who are looking for one company to come to for an end-to-end model that can help our customers with to partner, through partner and end-user marketing services.”

As a result of the acquisition, Mark Truby, the COO and CFO of bChannels, will become senior vice president and general manager of The Channel Company’s international business. Also Vaughn Mordecai, chief revenue officer at bChannels, will become senior vice president of sales leading the international customer engagement model.

Gowing said he is optimistic about the future for growth given the shared value of the two companies. “This was the right time to come together with someone that shares our vision and can help us take it to the next level,” he said. “We are incredibly excited about the future opportunity.”

There are simply no competitors in the channel that have the data that The Channel Company and bChannels are bringing to the market, said Gowing. “None of our competitors in the channel services market have taken this big leap into data like we have together,” he said. “It all comes down to precision targeting, knowing everything you can about a partner. It is all driven by data.”

Raddon, for his part, said he sees the combined digital marketing services as the start of a new era for helping drive business outcomes around the globe for technology vendors. “The offerings that we have are resonating in the market,” he said. “This is a great add-on to our platform. We now have a single platform for a suite of global services for the technology industry with a deep understanding of the channel. This is going allow us to continue as a leader in this market we have been serving for 40 years.”