Joining Forces With Vendors

Simply put, HP President and CEO Mark Hurd has said the company plans to “double down” with more money and support for those partners that recommend and sell a complete HP solution. It has backed those words with a new plan to map enterprise partners, those who sell Alpha and HP-UX servers and enterprise storage, into the sales plans of the vendor&'s Technology Solutions Group&'s direct-sales force.

In effect, HP channel executives said, the TSG sales team and enterprise solution providers will function as a single sales force in enterprise accounts. HP enterprise solution providers now say co-demand-generation activities may be a prerequisite for doing business with HP in enterprise accounts.

Javier Uribe, director of sales at Mobius Partners, an HP enterprise solution provider in San Antonio that generates approximately 70 percent of its revenue from sales of the vendor&'s products, only does demand generation in conjunction with HP. He said the tight alignment with the TSG sales force promised by HP is a reaffirmation of his strategy.

Conversely, Alameda, Calif.-based Roundstone, another HP enterprise partner, has done virtually no demand-generation activities to date with HP. But that could soon change.

Tim Joyce, Roundstone president and CEO, said Roundstone is developing its first demand-generation business plan, which involves HP. “We intend to incorporate our own programs and those from the manufacturer,” he said. “We&'re excited about putting some of HP&'s lead-generation activities in place and leveraging the HP brand. The HP brand is much more well-known than Roundstone.”

Joyce agreed that his decision to focus exclusively on HP, Palo Alto, Calif., should pay off given the new strategy. “Hopefully, this signals that HP is ready to go on the offense and wants to win new business again,” he said. “And hopefully it means HP wants to partner with solution providers that can help them grow.”

Joyce said he had absolutely no fears about partnering with HP on demand generation and then having the vendor steer a resulting opportunity to one of its direct-sales people. “If you can&'t trust your partner, why would you even partner with them?” Joyce said.

Still some solution providers that are exclusive with a single system vendor chose to keep their vendor partner out of some demand-generation activities.

Vince DeRose, president of Peak Resources, an IBM Premier Business Partner in Denver, almost always partners with IBM, Armonk, N.Y., when it comes to server sales. But when it comes to enterprise storage, he prefers to go it alone. “When you are selling storage you are talking more about a solution, rather than just selling a point product,” he said.

“We implicitly and explicitly trust everybody, but when you are in deep discussions with your customer, it&'s best to come across as being agnostic,” he said. “We don&'t want to paint ourselves into a corner.”