Should I stay or should I go?

As partner summit season kicks off, Hannah Breeze finds out if days out schmoozing with vendors and long-haul trips to partner events are really worth the investment for resellers

Armadillo racing, Elvis tribute acts and snow biking might not sound like typical events to fill the working day in the channel, but all have managed to find their way on to vendors' agendas during recent partner summit events.

San Francisco, Las Vegas and Barcelona are just some of the far-flung cities vendors like to lure VARs for partner junkets - that is, of course, if they are not already busy enjoying a round of golf offered up as corporate hospitality instead.

While there seems to be no shortage of vendor extravaganzas to choose from - CA Technologies and Oracle held theirs in the past few weeks, and VMware and Fujitsu's partner meetings are coming up - some VARs are reluctant to jet off and claim times have changed from when a week in the sun with a vendor was something you would not have to think twice about. And after the introduction of the Bribery Act, does that round of golf seem the right thing to do anymore?

Tech vendors are keen to stress the importance of meeting face to face at corporate away days and partner summits. But with time pressures in the channel more pronounced than ever, on top of mounting economic concerns, can resellers spare the days away from the front line to schmooze with vendors, and is it really worth it?

For Veeam Software, organising corporate hospitality days and partner summits are a must for getting to know its channel better, according to its UK and Ireland channel manager Taisha Betz.

"These events allow you to get a good understanding of what motivates partners and you can often get more from a quick, 10-minute conversation than you would from an hour-long meeting," she said, but added that the drop-out rate in the region is between 40 and 50 per cent, meaning events have to be organised well enough to satisfy both vendors' and partners' needs.

Jetsetting
All the top vendors hold partner events at least annually, and although local events throughout the year are planned, sometimes the only chance to get a wider, corporate view of a company's aims is to head to worldwide shindigs, which are commonly held in the US. This does not come cheap. For example, an early-bird ticket for Microsoft's Worldwide Partner Conference in 2014 will cost resellers $1,695 (£2,028) per delegate, not including hotels and flights, with other vendors' knees-ups around the same mark.

For reseller Softcat, shelling out on a trip abroad is fine so long as delegates make the most out of it, according to its managing director Colin Brown (pictured).

"It's a chance to meet new contacts as well as establishing firmer relationships with existing ones," he said. "One thing I say when people go on these things is don't just spend time meeting people you can see in the UK - otherwise it's just a plane fare. [I say] do make sure you go out of your comfort zone and talk to other people and generally I've seen that quite a lot.

"I suppose if I'm really honest, the other driver is the fear of missing out - if we're not there talking to these people, someone else might be. There's a little element of that too."

With so many vendor events to choose from, resellers need to be selective when picking which trips they attend, and often smaller vendors end up with fewer attendees, according to Max Meiklejohn, Freedom Communications' marketing director.

"It is clear vendors want to get you in a room - the squeaky wheel gets the grease - so there is an element of them wanting you to be present so they stay in your face so you keep selling their stuff," he said.

"I would be more inclined to go to a bigger vendor's event. We only really work with Microsoft, HP and Alcatel so they tend to be larger but I am more inclined to go to those sorts of events as there are more senior people there who are more useful and more relevant to us."

But with thousands of partners and customers descending on conference centres for huge tech vendors' dos, it can often be difficult to really get something out of the event, according to channelfusion's Bruce Hockin, who said good things come in small packages when it comes to channel conferences.

"One of the best company events I used to go to was Sourcefire's," he said. "They did a partner advisory council and it was much more interactive and much smaller - maybe 50 people at the event. When you provide more interactivity, you're opening the door and showing partners more interesting things about how they deliver value. I think that is really important. It's a waste when it gets absolutely huge and you are left to wander."

Corporate conscience
If an expensive, week-long jaunt to the US is out of the question, then the lure of a one-day jolly to the golf course, a sporting event or a top-notch restaurant paid for by the vendor can seem like the best of both worlds.

According to figures from Market and Consumer Insight, the total corporate hospitality market struggled between 2007 and 2011, and after a bumpy few years, managed to grow only two per cent over the four-year period to £950m.

Demand for tickets to the London Olympic Games last year boosted the market as a whole, and the firm expects a similar impact from next year's Glasgow Commonwealth Games too, warning that without the two major sporting events, the corporate hospitality landscape would be "very sluggish" in light of economic conditions.

In 2011, the Bribery Act came into force in the UK, and while it did not outlaw corporate hospitality, it may have pricked the consciences of many.
The legislation states that corporate hospitality must be "reasonable and proportionate" and must not be intended to induce conduct that amounts to the recipient not acting in good faith or impartially.

"The government does not intend for the [Bribery] Act to prohibit reasonable and proportionate hospitality and promotional or other similar business expenditure intended [to improve a commercial organisation's image]," the law states. "It is, however, clear that hospitality and promotional or other similar business expenditure can be employed as bribes."

Softcat boss Brown said the new law has made people think twice before saying yes to extravagant trips.

"The impact of the Bribery Act is that people are much more wary of [hospitality] now," he said. "That's a top-down reason for not doing it and it has crept into people's consciousness.

"I have had invitations where I've looked at it and thought ‘I can't justify that' - it talks to your own morals, especially these days - more so than it did 10 or 15 years ago. [People] do question themselves and make sure they can justify it to themselves - it has changed the mentality somewhat."

Oracle has found itself in hot water recently, in a corporate hospitality row in which a San Francisco strip club filed a lawsuit against the firm, alleging that a $33,540 bill on a company credit card was left unpaid.

Freedom's Meiklejohn agreed that corporate hospitality is not something he has a lot of time for. "I struggle to justify spending time doing that stuff," he said. "I only ever do it if I'm taking customers. The days of going on jollies for us have gone."