HDS renews channel focus for market shift

Hitachi Data Systems (HDS) will “dramatically change” its route to market, and more than double the business going through the channel.

This is according to new managing director of HDS, Steve Murphy. Appointed just three weeks ago, the former vice-president of software for UK at EMC said HDS has primarily operated in the data centre space, but this is now changing.

“We are moving into archiving and the whole management of data,” he said. “We are moving more into the mid-tier, which includes our modular arrays, and part of me joining the HDS team is that I want to ensure we have our route to market right.”

Murphy said HDS has a heritage of using the channel, but mostly for adding services to its products.

“Now we have a strategy that is enabling the channel to go after the market,” he added. “Even in the past few weeks we have increased the size of our internal channel team by 40 per cent. Currently about 44 per cent of our business goes through the channel. I want to make this dramatically different and push at least 80 per cent of our business through the channel.”

Murphy said he is looking to make it easier for VARs to deal with HDS and also wants to add more training, marketing and incentives into the channel programme.

“We are absolutely on a reseller recruitment drive,” he said. “Our new business focus is 100 per cent delivered through the channel and we have put a big investment into our CRM environment so that we have direct educational feeds going through into the channel.”

However, Murphy admitted the vendor will still operate some accounts directly.

“For our very large accounts we will still have a direct touch, because customers demand this,” he said. “ But all of our mid-tier and new business will be channel focused.”

Jason Rabbetts, managing director of VAR StorPoint, said doubling channel business would be a positive move.

“HDS’s recent channel policy has been good and its sales people are incentivised to work with the channel, which is positive,” he said. “HDS needs to get some resellers behind it who really back it; some partners put it second fiddle to EMC or IBM, so the vendor needs to get a few VARs in its ranks who will put it first.”

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