Tag: resellers

Resellers see digital transformation as a way to cuddle up

Posted on October 11, 2019 by - News

The What UK Resellers Really Think study from Westcoast has discovered that most resellers see digital transformation as a chance to get closer to customers.

Partners identified cloud services and machine learning as areas where they could make money in the next few year with more than half saying they were ready to act in the area for the next two to three years.

Westcoast found that the gap between understanding the digital transformation opportunity and being in a position to deliver it was one that distribution could help bridge. Its research found that 92 percent of resellers admitted to being more demanding of their disties than they were two years ago and many looked to their supply partners for customer insights, marketing advice and forecasts.

Dell promises to beef up the channel

Posted on October 10, 2018 by - Events, News

A bevy of senior Dell EMC executives spoke to a bevy of tech hacks this morning and spelled out in detail their promise of reseller goodnesses for their mega storage and server businesses.

Speaking at the Canalys Channel Forum in sunny Barcelona, the company was quick to say it was prepared for the British exit from the EU (Brexit) from day one, and even before day one. It is talking to the UK government and to other bodies and organisations to ease the transition if and when and however it comes.

But, and relating to its channel strategy, Dell EMC said it had given its resellers a lower price, and “that forms a strong incentive to the channel. Large accounts worldwide are wide open. If our partners win that business they’re protected.”

Michael Collins

Dell EMC’s Michael Collins showing determination

Dell EMC said it will be a partner led strategy.

“Speaking to our partners and what they want from us is to look at the opportunities that exist in our enterprise business. We have to give them the ability to sell right across the range of Dell’s product portfolio.

“We’ve looked at where the opportunities are for the channel. We’re putting a commitment to the channel in order to invest and win incremental business, to be protected and we’ve introduced “partner of record” – that means the customer is locked to the partner for a period of a year. It’s exactly what our partners asked for.”

Dell EMC said there are two flavours of its preferred programme.

“It’s not just for enterprise customers but we’ve expanded this to include commercial as well. The benefit for the partner is really simple. When partners sell more, they make more margin and revenue and it gives incremental opportunities. This is very much based around our storage portfolio.”

Further, Dell EMC is pushing into its enterprise IoT business for large organisations and will offer eight bundles aimed at specific environments.”

It’s the software that is the secret, the company claimed, and the bundles are related to large requirements such as energy requirements for connected organisations.

“It is not going to pay all the bills this year, next year or even the year after. These are early attempts to figure out how to promote this technology. We have IoT training for customers and partners and have made this available through our distributors.”

Around a half of its enterprise storage and server offerings are fulfilled through the channel, the company claimed.

Vendors need to oil the resellers aching joints

Posted on October 10, 2018 by - News

Steve Brazier, the top analyst at Canalys gave his views on the future of the channel in the European market right now in the European forum held in rainy Barcelona today. And apparently there are more storms on the way.

And as well as giving his predictions on the way things are going, he turned his attention on the top six vendors and the way they were disappointing distributors and resellers.

In a wide-ranging keynote, Brazier said that the trade war between China and the USA introduced uncertainties into the market and no-one can predict the shape of things to come. It could be that we see large shifts in manufacturing and companies like Samsung that manufacture in Vietnam rather than China could reap huge benefits from not facing heavy tariffs.

He said that partners make most of their money from the top six and it’s all down to a question of margins. The channel and the vendors, he said, had introduced friction into the border between direct selling and through partners.

He said that there’s more friction between vendors and the channel. The vendors demand loyalty from their channel while the channel wants vendors to stop selling directly. There’s a danger that vendors are not being open about the data they get from their “partners”.

“We’re expecting some tough questions in the private sessions.”

SOS teams up with FONtevo

Posted on September 3, 2018 by - News

banner_220x220SOS Communications is teaming up with FONtevo to deliver  SME based telephony services and solutions for resellers.

This partnership has been developed over the past year for the UK&I market. The partnership is to be launched at the Channel Live event on 11-12 September 2018 at the NEC, Birmingham – where SOS Communications will be looking to recruit new resellers.

At the launch, SOS Communications and FONtevo are focused on bringing something special to the current way of working with distributors in the UK&I. We would encourage resellers to come along to the Channel Live event and see how the new partnership will help drive growth and profitability in their business.

Colin Hepher, CEO SOS Communications said: “This is a great opportunity for UK&I resellers to have access to first class solutions from what we see as the Mercedes of the telecoms world, manufacturer in Germany. With FONtevo solutions, SOS’s track record and 25 years in the industry we will become synonymous with excellent service and solutions that are built to last”

FONtevo/ Auerswald CEO, Christian Auerswald welcomes this exciting partnership and said: “As part of our programme to be seen as a global manufacturer with quality at the heart of everything we do, we are proud to be able to partner with SOS Communications to offer a different type of service and solutions to the UK reseller market.”

Cloud phones wants to double resellers

Posted on December 8, 2015 by - News

Every silver has a cloudy liningCloud Telephones wants to double the number of resellers it works with pro-actively to market and sell hosted VoIP services over the coming year.

The company is currently working with and paying commission to 70 partners across the UK and wants to bring another 70 on-board through the course of 2016 to meet increased demand.

The outfit claims it has seen monthly income from voice services subscriptions grow by more than 200 percent with half of all monthly revenues going to the reseller. It predicts that the growth will continue with higher volume of new customer enquiries it is now generating, needs to engage with additional partners.

In a statement John Carter, Managing Director of Cloud Telephones, said: “The demand is there – we just need more resellers to get involved. Most customers understand hosted voice well enough now and we take all the hassle away from the reseller, so they don’t need to worry about the complexity of getting customers set-up. We generate the original leads, manage all the provisioning and provide support. We have managed thousands of installations already, so the customer gets a great experience and all the reseller needs to do is go out and sell.”

 

Disties lose their rag with Lenovo

Posted on October 7, 2015 by - News

lenovo_hqThere’s a dynamic in the channel between vendors, distributors and what we used to call dealers but are now forced to call resellers for politically correct reasons.

The basis of that dynamic is the cold fact that they all hate each other. The vendors hate the disties, the disties hate the vendors, the dealers hate the disties and the vendors, the disties hate the dealers. The consumers just, hopefully, buy stuff.

So here at the Canalys Channel Forum (CCF) we were pleased to observe quite a degree of upset at Lenovo for, in the 1990s jargon, “stuffing the channel”.

What that means is several distributors I have talked to here have clearly indicated that they have piles of Lenovo products in their warehouses that not only aren’t selling that well but continue to be delivered to their distributors, willy-nilly.

These sources from various distributors decline to be named, for obvious reasons, but have clearly indicated that they suspect the same thing is going to happen on the X86 server front too.

Lenovo could not be contacted at press time because it’s 05:42 in the morning here in Barcelona and we’re just waiting for breakfast to start.

We’re sure we’ll have our share of nibbles later in the day.

HP’s VSI is still running

Posted on September 21, 2015 by - News

INDUSTRY HP 1While it has been scaled back because many in the Channel hate it, HP’s daft Value System Integrator sales programme is still running.

The brilliant idea was started as a way to beat Dell on pricing by removing distributors from the supply chain and using that margin to give customers discounts.

It did not work very well and miffed the hell out of the channel. The cunning plan was that HP would not pay resellers any soft margin or marketing funds, just a one per cent rebate, and allow them to boost their coffers by wrapping products in their own tech services.

The model expanded to the private sector, and saw HP competing against its trusted channel allies.
VSI was one of two decisions which killed off HP’s business. The other one was to ask account managers in the Enterprise Group to manage PC resellers to build direct sales.

The move was great for Lenovo who suddenly had SCC, Softcat, Kelway and other big resellers wanting to work with them.

Apparently though HP has now re-purposed so that it is only used in the public sector again. Even that is less of a focus.

HP CEO Meg Whitman promised to remove channel conflict when she started, setting out rules to govern the behaviour of internal sales reps; and passed some enterprise accounts that were directly managed to channel types.

Trend chooses Arrow as cloud distie

Posted on June 11, 2014 by - News

cloud 1Arrow has signed an agreement with Trend Micro to offer resellers access to its security offerings as part of the ArrowSphere xSP platform.

This gives suppliers and resellers of value add IT services to help sell products to customers.

Arrow will distribute a range of Trend Micro offerings whether for email security or server protection including OfficeScan, Mobile Security, and Deep Security. The last includes anti-malware, verifying web sites, firewall, intrustion prevention, integrity monitoring, log inspection and virtual patching.

Eric Taillard, VP in charge of cloud services at Arrow ECS said that customer demand for cloud security services remains high. “It is an essential building block for value added resellers,” he said.

Meanwhile, Martina Mulas, senior manager in charge of SMB sales and marketing at Trend, said that the distribution agreement will help it “step up” its relationships with MSP resellers.  Last year it introduced its MSP programme and partners are moving to managed services and pay as you go buying.

HP rejigs its channel people

Posted on May 13, 2014 by - Moving People, News

HPDiversity and change are cited for the reasons that there’s been a reshuffle at HP Enterprise Group channel  personnel. Diversity and change. Change and diversity – those two magic words say so much and at the same time so very little.

Out is Kevin Matthews while in is Johnny Ansell.

Ansell is the new UK and Ireland indirect director for HP’s enterprise group.  He’s been at HP for fifteen years but most lately ran the HP networking business for the last 10 quarters.  Who has replaced him at the networking business remains a mystery.

According to a statement from Andy Isherwood, HP’s managing director, Matthews and others have driven “continuous growth” for over five years.

Isherwood cited his achievements as growth, relationships, and “innovation”.

What’s happened to Matthews?  HP isn’t ready to say but Isherwood said he will let us know, “once we have fully transitioned the channel business to the new leader”.  Happy transitioning.

Sennheiser hires channel woman

Posted on April 14, 2014 by - News

Jane WheelerHeadset and UC manufacturer Sennheiser said it has created a post of reseller sales manager and hired a woman for the role.

Jane Wheeler will be reseller sales manager for Sennheiser Comms.

Her job will be to work with the channel, build relationships and affiliations and to educate resellers about the products, build training programmes, organise events and provide support for resellers selling products to people.

She said she is looking forward to promoting the products into the channel, while sales director Jane Craven said Wheeler has a track record in the sector.

Channel can’t cope with cloud

Posted on March 5, 2014 by - News

cloudbustChannel players are finding it tough to cope with the fast change in cloud services, according to a report from MTI.

MTI surveyed both UK resellers and services providers and 77 percent of those responded said that Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) was the top priority for their clients.

Less than half provide IaaS directly and only 22 percent can provide the service through vendors, MTI claimed.

That, claimed Chris Roberts, channel sales leader at MtI, meant there’s a gap between what clients want and resellers offer.

“It’s very difficult for resellers to be flexible enough to provide solutions as and when they come into fashion when demand from clients peak,” he said.

Nearly two thirds of resellers and service providers generate 40 percent of their turnover services.

iPass signs up more resellers

Posted on December 5, 2013 by - News

Rene Hendrikse, iPassPeople looking to implement BYOD in their businesses are looking for secure network access and iPass has signed a clutch of resellers to promote its Open Mobile strategy.

The company has signed three UK resellers and one German reseller today and is looking to increase its channel partners.

Bridgeway Security Solutions, Olive Communications and Specialist Computer Centres are its three new British partners, while it has also signed mITE GmbH in Germany.

Rene Hendrikse, iPASS VP of EMEA, told ChannelEye that while some sectors – such as the financial sector – there are big opportunities for resellers in other industries.

Hendrikse said: “We can help resellers work with their customers while resellers are looking for solutions to use secure devices.”  iPass has a worldwide network of secure wi-fi access points.

He said that in the last 18 months the reseller landscape has changed and customers are turning to BYODs.

iPass is looking to recruit resellers with customers in other sectors such as the airline industry and other sectors.

5i introduces cloud channel programme

Posted on December 4, 2013 by - News

Clouds in Oxford: pic Mike MageeResellers are aware of the potential of the cloud but need help implementing complex systems.

That’s according to channel services company 5i – which said today it is launching a Partner Enablement Programme.

Richard Brown, 5i channel sales director, said: “Cloud technology offers many benefits but is also the biggest threat to businesses. And resellers are quick to recognise the complexities of deployment.

“It is the most disruptive technology to dominate the market for a long time. Many businesses see the huge benefits that cloud can bring – but embracing it can be incredibly challenging.,” he continued.

Brown said that resellers’ customers rarely introduce full cloud deployments but are looking for blended cloud and on premise environments.

The 5i programme, he said includes marketing, sales, pre-sales and technical engagement to support partners. If resellers use its services, resellers always keep their customers.  Brown said his firm is 100 percent channel focused.

Symantec reveals plans for EMEA partners

Posted on November 20, 2013 by - News

symantecSymantec resellers need not fear getting the chop as the security company unveils its new channel strategy .

Although a little light on detail, when asked about the current size of its partner channel and the ideal size of a future channel, Symantec’s VP of EMEA partner management, Mark Nutt, confirmed that having the right channel mix was more important than the overall size.

But there can be little doubt the vendor will be shedding a number of under-performing resellers and replacing them from some of the new partner categories it has identified – there are eight such categories, according to Nutt, who also stressed the important role for disties in the future of the Symantec channel.

“Distribution has a tremendous amount to offer but we need to work out where the value to our partners,” Nutt said. “Now that we’ve identified eight different partner types, we need to better understand which parts of the channel we need to explore, which to invest more in and which that streamlining.”

Although Nutt stressed he was “not looking to turn partners off; it’s not about reducing numbers” it looks likely some resellers will have to forge relationships with distributors, such as TechData, Arrow, Avnet, Ingram and Cohort.

Those disties that can help Symantec recruit from new partner groups will be of particular interest.

The vendor is also streamlining its product offering down from around 150 different products to less than 10, in order to make the task of addressing customer needs more straightforward for resellers.

The changes are part of a global strategy which will lead to a new partner programme which goes live in February 2014 but will be officially unveiled in April.

Symantec is also opening a telephone-based partner account management team that will be run from its Dublin offices.

Apps ain’t heavy, they’re by Brother

Posted on November 12, 2013 by - News, Products

ipad3Brother said it has created a series of apps intended to help its reseller community and its salesforce.

And to that end, it has given its entire sales force iPads with 3G access intended to help them put the message across about their products to resellers when they’re on the road.

David Peters, who heads up strategic development at Brother UK, said: “Access to our bespoke iPad apps means that our salesforce can easily access our online corporate resources, including those on our partner programme Brother Network, and as a result, provide better answers and a higher level of service.

“Brother UK is living and breathing an agile working culture, which increasingly typifies the working style of many of our partners and product end-users. By investing in the latest technology, we are not only improving our service to our partners, but also showcasing the progress we are making as a forward thinking solutions provider.”