HP Gold VARs urged to specialise after channel rejig

All change: individual business units now decide channel rebates and sales targets

HP has lifted the lid on the effects of its channel overhaul and urged more Gold partners to reap the benefits of obtaining product specialisations.

Solutions Partner Organisation head honcho Dave Poskett departed HP earlier this year after 18 years with the company. Under the new structure, individual business units have been given more autonomy, with responsibility for rebate structures, channel incentives and revenue targets resting locally.

Kevin Matthews now fills the role of UK and Ireland channel manager for Enterprise Storage, Servers and Networking (ESSN). Paul Early oversees channel operations for HP's services arm, while Paul Hunter and Tony Smith address the Personal Systems Group and Imaging and Printing Group respectively. Matthews claimed the rejig was benefiting VARs.

"If you look at what HP does, we are a broad church in terms of products and services, with discrete competitors in each of those areas," he said. "How would [the restructure] tangibly be any different? [It will improve] speed of decision making on investments and now our targeting is all aligned.

"I have been in the channel organisation for 15-20 years and I have never seen so much resource aligned to the HP channel as we currently have."

Matthews claimed HP did not have any desire to thin out Gold partner ranks, adding that one of the vendor's main objectives was to push them towards product specialisations.

"There is no end point in terms of the number of partners we have," he said. "What we are encouraging our partners to do more and more is get specialised. Partners that do get extra compensation, are typically part of a smaller community and are more well known to the HP sales force."

Early revealed about 35 of HP's base of 85 UK Gold partners held the services specialisation. He added that services partners had reacted well to the channel revamp.

"The partners I have talked to have given positive feedback," he said. "If they are specialised, they are finding it to easier to do business with us."

Matthews indicated that ESSN partners were benefiting from a dedicated SME sales force, based in Scotland, which doubled in size last year and will do so again in 2010.

"It is not a case of just doing some marketing into SME customers; they are calling out, qualifying hard on prospects and then working those leads jointly [with channel partners]," he said. "The benefit of that approach rather than outsourcing or passing on leads on is that we have a tight engagement."

Cisco and HP's increasingly fractious relationship is of little concern, claimed Matthews. He added that the market's changing landscape could benefit his firm and that he needed to ensure HP is "the best vendor to do business with in the channel".

"That means stability, flexibility, being easy to do business with and [focusing on] how quickly we can turn pricing around," he said. "I am aware of the competition; I do not base my channel strategy on what the competition are doing. The market is changing, but I see that as an opportunity."