Sony to bolster VAIO business programme

Spratt: We need to manage leads to our resellers

Sony has pledged to bolster training and lead generation activities for resellers of its business range of VAIO notebooks in 2009.

The vendor took its first real plunge into the business channel last July when it launched its VAIO business partner programme.

Since then, 40 UK resellers have joined the programme, including Computacenter, SCC, European Electronique and Lanway.

David Spratt, SME channel sales manager at Sony UK, told CRN the vendor planned to make several improvements to the programme in its next fiscal year beginning April.

“There are some areas I can see developing,” he said.

“I would like there to be some training aspect to it and we are also working on some way of managing leads to resellers. Sony generally has a lot of leads but we could engage better with channel partners to get the leads to them.”

Spratt said Sony account managers already engage in ad hoc sales training but confirmed he was exploring ways for partners to access training on demand via the web.

“We have had over six months of reseller participation in the programme and those that are in it are growing faster that those who are not, so it is having the desired effect,” he said.

Unlike other A-brand vendors, Spratt said Sony had not raised its UK prices in recent months to cover the higher cost of components bought in dollars. But he hinted that new products coming out next year may be pitched at higher prices.

“Vendors may try to maintain price points but they will be taking things out of the spec to achieve that price. They will have to do one or the other,” he explained.