Q&A: New CA Storage Channel Chief Roberts Aims To Drive Recurring Revenue

CA Tuesday braced itself for an MSP and cloud channel assault by naming channel superstar David Roberts as vice president of channel strategy for its storage group.

Roberts, a former channel chief at Websense and McAfee, instituted major channel changes at both those security companies that resulted in significant increases in channel sales.

CA also moved staunch channel advocate Adam Famularo to a new role as general manager of CA's Cloud Customer Solutions unit, and named 12-year CA veteran Mike Crest as general manager of its storage group.

In an interview with CRN Editor, News Steven Burke and Senior Editor Joseph F. Kovar, Roberts spoke about his new role and his top priorities over the next 30 days.

How does it feel to get back in the channel game?

I am excited to be here. It was an opportunity to come over to CA and grow part of their business. This space is dependent on the channel in order to grow. It was just a really great fit for me personally. I matched up well with the executive team. It was very comfortable from day one.

We will go out and look at partner profitability and the margins companies are making on the product line. We will go drive the organization to think in terms of the partner winning which I think is really important.

When you look at the current economic environment and you look at the pressure on a reseller's business they are incurring a lot of operational costs that are going up in this environment. So to the extent that we can help them develop services strategies outside just a pure time and materials business model and develop recurring revenue streams from a services standpoint, the ability to drive that recurring revenue stream without having to deploy an SE (system engineer) I think is going to be key to being successful.

Developing packaged services offerings and recurring services revenue models with end user customers is going to be important outside of just a pure time and materials business model that is so expensive for a VAR today. We will help them from a services strategy look at those types of opportunities.

We will look at the barriers to entry for our product line. When you think about going to a VAR and asking them to pick up your product line, that is really, really hard for companies to do. You have to think about the owner of the business and the fact that this is their money.

When you think about picking up a product line, the owner of that business is going to worry about: 'Do I have sales capacity to fill it? Do I need additional technical resources to support the product? If I bring the product line on is it going to be profitable? How is it going to affect my margin mix and am I going to be taking away sales capacity from other lines?' So we'll help people understand that so they can adopt the product line and be successful with it.

We will work hard to ensure that partners can retain customers. We have a clear understanding of the acquisition cost of a new customer and we'll make sure that once that investment is made by the partner that we have retention programs that are designed to help that channel partner maintain that customer. Those are the kinds of things that I will look at in order to make all this work. I couldn't be more excited to be here.

Next: Increasing Partner Sales Velocity

What are your priorities as you take on this new role?

I will focus on providing velocity on execution around business across geographies and particular vertical segments like state and local. We'll go look at what those opportunities are and continue to press hard with our existing partners to make sure they are successful. As we go out and expand our channel reach we'll look at places that we need help in terms of geographies and specific vertical markets as we move toward growing much, much faster than the market rate of the business for the industry as a whole.

As you look at growing the business exponentially, any pledge on profitability for partners?

I still have got a lot to learn but a partner today can make 40 points on deal registration. That is important. We are also paying a lot of attention to incumbent resellers. If there is one thing I have learned it's that the acquisition cost of that new business is so expensive. To the extent that we can help those partners maintain that existing customer and drive additional revenue to existing customers as we go out and get new business, that will be key to success.

What have you been doing since you left Websense earlier this year?

I have been working with a bunch of resellers looking at how to help companies optimize their business and with some investment groups around resellers in the Texas area. I have been working on everything from helping them look at how to restructure their insurance costs, how to extend leases to get free months in their rent. You can think of that as capital infusion. How to look at different services models outside of pure time and expense to drive a recurring revenue stream with resellers. That is what I have been doing and hope to bring that skill set to a bunch of CA partners.

Anything specifically you are looking at doing in the first 30 days?

First of all we want to anchor those existing partners that are key to the business and make sure that they know we are going to be here for them and go work on that business first. Obviously they have invested a lot in CA and this product line specifically and we want to ensure their success and help them gain velocity in the market.

Then we will go out and look at the lifecycle of the partners and look at everything from the training to enablement and how do we help people compete, what is the sales process, and make sure that we understand at the most basic level what are the customer objections, what are the pricing models that we need to be able to address? What are the feature sets that need to be in the product to make that work. How do our programs compare in the marketplace? So over the next 30 days we'll be developing the next business plan that will be rolled out on Oct. 15.

So what will that business plan rolled out on Oct. 15 include?

It will be just an assessment of the business and the things that we can do more of, the things that are working, which will probably be the majority of what we focus on and then areas where we need to make changes. Those will probably center on places we need help in particular geographies or vertical markets.

You made changes at Websense and McAfee. How big a cultural shock to the system is this for CA in terms of channel?

I don't think it is at all. This group has been completely dependent upon the channel. This is just an opportunity to go press the pedal harder and go drive velocity in the business. CA sees an opportunity for growth with this product in the storage area. So it shouldn't be a big shock. It should be fun.