HP Portal Helps VAR Sales Staff Navigate Training, Certification

Hewlett-Packard Monday rolled out a program called Blue Carpet aimed at solution provider sales reps.

Blue Carpet gives solution provider sales reps a new portal including information on sales training and certifications and ties it to the solution provider's PartnerOne portal, said Mike Parrottino, vice president and general manager of U.S. channel sales and marketing at HP.

"We want to make it easier for partner sales reps to get all the information they need to sell the entire HP portfolio," Parrottino said. "We are consolidating all the tools and training, everything that might take a lot of navigation of HP's Web sites, into a single portal."

Rose Genovese, national channel programs manager at HP, said Blue Carpet brings together information from across HP's product portfolios specific to the needs of partner sales reps, including information about what they need to close a deal, what marketing information is available to them, and information they can use to talk to potential customers. This information can be customized by the sales rep or the solution provider for individual reps, she said.

"It's a streamlined, easy way for reps to find the information they need about training or promotions or spifs," she said.

A key part of the program is the sales training and testing information, Genovese said.

"We have a lot of products being launched and new programs running through the year," she said. "Today, time is a limited resource for such things as road shows or face-to-face training. Blue Carpet makes it possible for reps to get all the information they need."

This is especially true for newly hired sales reps, Genovese said. "Partners can put new hires through to Blue Carpet, where they can see what training is needed," she said. "Partners can then track the training while reps take the tests and get rewarded as they pass."

Blue Carpet also provides an easy way to split sales rewards among multiple team members such as inside sales reps, outside reps and support personnel, Genovese said.

The new program is aligned with HP's PartnerOne program to make sure the sales reps are working with the overall solution provider organization's goals, Genovese said. "The partner can run reports to track who is registered in Blue Carpet, who has done all the training, and who has taken the required surveys," she said.

In addition, Blue Carpet enables spifs to be paid to partner sales reps in the form of a debit card based on sales and attach rates.

Partners can start signing up for the program this week, while the bulk of the benefits will be available starting May 1.

Chris Case, president of Sequel Data Systems, an Austin, Texas-based solution provider and HP partner, said that any help HP can provide in tracking certifications is important.

"It's hard to do with HP, which has such a huge product portfolio," Case said. "And providing sales reps with easy access to marketing material is a big help to them."

NEXT: Blue Carpet Will Help New Hires, Says VAR

Sequel Data Systems has hired three new sales reps in the past six months, and Blue Carpet would have been useful in getting them started, Case said.

"It's still a daily question of, 'Hey Chris, where do I go for this?' or 'Hey Chris, where do I go for that?'" he said.

However, Case said, he is not sure whether the spifs portion of Blue Carpet will be used.

"Historically, we stayed away from spifs," he said. "What may be the right solution for the customer may not be what is spiffed at the time. I don't want the sales reps to be in a position of trying to determine the best solution based on a spif. We don't want our guy to be in a position of deciding the solution based on his own rewards."