CRN Interview: Ken Lamneck, Tech Data

Four months into his role as Tech Data Americas president, Ken Lamneck this week addressed a gathering of the TechSelect membership in Chicago. Later, in an interview with CRN Editor Heather Clancy, Lamneck discusses the Clearwater, Fla.-based distributor's initiative to define more formal procedures around its sales management processes.

CRN: How do you see Tech Data's role changing when it comes to helping solution providers' awareness?

LAMNECK: I think a lot of distributors spent a lot of time being almost call-center-driven to some degree.

CRN: Call-center-driven?

LAMNECK: As far as how we process so much. We're really trying to become truly inside-sales-focused in so many different areas. How do we become more proactive in our sales initiatives is really the big theme. That's the biggest difference that we have. So we're spending some time right now developing a sales management system, a formal sales management system. We didn't have it as formal as it should have been. So we're spending time developing that, and it's pretty much 90 percent completed now.

CRN: Is that an intranet application or a process?

LAMNECK: It's a process and a real structure of how we build that into everything that we do. We'll be training everybody in August [and] the first part of September--anybody in the sales management area--so that we can make sure we're all completely on the same page. The whole issue has come out of, I think, sort of an internally focused area. With such a downturn, where everyone was looking at their operations and streamlining and streamlining, how do we get more outward-focused with these kind of proactive initiatives?

CRN: What will the training entail?

LAMNECK: Basically, we've defined seven pillars of the sales management process. Certainly, we're going to have a more structured way of how we provide services to our solution providers.

CRN: Can you give me an example?

LAMNECK: The first process is fundamental, and that's the territory assessments piece. So we've done a lot of work at really understanding the size of the market, by geography, and we're detailing it out by account so that we can really understand, do we have all the appropriate resources in the appropriate areas?

CRN: Are you focused on end-user activities, or on helping solution providers figure out new market areas?

LAMNECK: There's really many things involved with demand generation. Our belief is that we need to focus on programs at the reseller, solution provider level. A lot of our vendors want to go directly to the end user to influence [demand] and sort of bypass any programs that support the reseller. We believe they have a significant amount of influence in certain areas.

We're in the midst of creating the seven elements of how we can help the vendors, through the resellers, create demand for products. These are some very tangible things that we have the capability to do, and we haven't tapped into that. We haven't really mined our databases nearly to the extent that we should have.

We just did a Microsoft assurance program, notifying resellers that, 'Hey, did you know. We just need to make a phone call, this is coming up.' It's a significant value to our resellers, as well as to us and Microsoft. So we're looking now to say how do we mine that further, because we have such great information to help provide some demand.

A lot of things around the fundamental associated sell. How do we tap our technical resources and SEs into assisting customers with that piece as well? It's not like there's all these new things we have to do. We have to take what we've got and repackage it and create a program around it. But it really has to be very reseller-focused, because when you go to demand generation, the big question that comes up is, 'OK, what are your metrics?' And when you try to bypass and go right to the end user, the metrics get very, very fuzzy and in many cases unbelievable.

CRN: How important are ISVs for the future of Tech Data in terms of pulling them into the fold, working with them?

LAMNECK: They have a tremendous influence, especially as we get into a lot of the specialized business units. Providing that area of focus is really an important part of the solution.

CRN: How do you find them?

LAMNECK: There's lots of different ways. Talking to various vendors, they'll gravitate toward certain solutions, so that's how we're finding quite a few of these people at this point.

CRN: Your units are mostly horizontal verticals. How do you handle industry verticals? Do the programs you develop for those cut across?

LAMNECK: They do. That's a pretty big distinction. We think it makes a lot of sense because when we look at some of the ways that technology plays, it cuts across numerous industry verticals. That's the solution that we can really help provide to our vendor partners as well as the reseller, who may have been just looking at the one vertical.

CRN: Are there any particular verticals that are of key importance?

LAMNECK: They're all so key. Some are bigger than others, obviously, but we try not to exclude any of the industry verticals. It's hard to address all of the industry verticals with specific programs because it becomes all-encompassing. So then what you have to do, of course, is select just a few key ones, the top four type of thing. And I think you tend to miss, and we wouldn't provide as rich solutions to our solution providers. We find a lot of them are focusing in this one area and then they start morphing into this one area, to provide solutions to it.

CRN: What's your biggest surprise or revelation since joining Tech Data?

LAMNECK: There weren't that many surprises. I think the company operates, logistically, very, very soundly, and I think the next sort of evolution is this whole sales management process.

How do we come up with a much more disciplined way to approach the sales process? We're starting in August and, of course, it does continue to take time to get everybody completely on board with it. It provides some really good opportunities for us, but not at the expense of anything else we're doing. I think that's where some of the greatest value going forward will be. Getting a lot closer to our customers.