CA Rolls Wave Of Top Accounts To Partners

The move, which reduces the number of named accounts, cuts the Islandia, N.Y., vendor’s costs, said Debra Tummins, senior vice president and Southeast area manager for CA. Named accounts that buy less than $1.3 million of CA’s products annually will no longer be serviced by direct sales, she said. No direct salespeople will be laid off as result of the changes, but CA will reallocate many direct salespeople to other sales positions, she said.

Hanley said the criteria for losing named account status will be different in every sales territory. “Naturally it will be the smaller [named accounts] that are cut,” he said.

Enterprise Solution Provider (ESP) partners of CA were routinely tapped by direct sales to support some of the original 12,000 or so named accounts created last April. Bob Joyce, president of Versatile Systems, a publicly-owned ESP partner in Vancouver, said he’ll carefully manage relationships with customers who have lost their named account status to avoid being punished for CA’s decision. Being a trusted adviser with a broad IT services skill set will help keep as a customer any ex-named account, he said.

“[ESP] partners who may have been more pure procurement may have a problem, but not us,” he said.

Subtracting direct sales competition means the opportunity for well-skilled non-ESP partners to reach out to former named accounts will be improved, Hanley explained. During his XChange presentation, Hanley said CA has made significant upgrades to the way it can support non-ESP partners. CA’s indirect sales currently account for just under 10 percent of total sales, the vendor said.

Amy Luby, CEO of Mobitech, a first-time xChange delegate from Omaha, Neb., said Hanley’s presentation interested her in adding CA as a partner. Gordon Scobel, CEO of Qualitech, a solution provider from Bingham Farms, Mich., who has been attending XChange events for more than a decade, said the efforts CA says it makes for non-ESP partners does not adequately resonate out in the field, which is why he does not sell CA.