No going back

Unify's partner boss tells Phil Tottman why the vendor has switched to an indirect sales ethos

In the past year Unify has moved to a partner-led sales model across 54 countries. Jon Pritchard, executive vice president of worldwide channels at the firm, recently declared that "we can't go back" to a direct-selling world. The comms vendor's channel chief spoke to CRN about the reasons behind its shift in direction and the challenges it has faced along the way.

What is the reasoning for developing a deeper channel focus?

Traditionally we have been a very direct sales-led organisation. We made the decision when I joined [in April 2014] that we would look to change that, so the past 12 months have been really busy for us. We have been spending a lot of time talking to our partners and end customers and defining the model. For the past six months we've been in execution mode - so in a nutshell we are moving to a more partner-centric business. Historically, just over 20 per cent of our business has been done through partners, but we obviously have aspirations to change that around the world. We currently trade in about 70 countries worldwide and we are making progress in stepping away from the strategy of having a direct sales solution in every country, and moving towards having a more partner-centric business.

How has your partner programme changed along with the channel focus?

There is lot of talk in the industry about partner programmes - what needs to be done and how they can be made different - so our focus was all about building it out with the partner. We took a lot of time talking to our partners about what they wanted. It goes without saying that because of the mixed model of direct and indirect we had a big trust issue in terms of: "why would you partner with Unify when they could potentially compete against me?" We are looking to make sure the programme augments our relationships and cements our bonds with our existing guys, but also brings in new players.

Which countries are still both direct and channel?

We are completely indirect in about 55 countries around the world, which is a huge change from where we were nine months ago. We have what we call the large nine, which is Germany, Austria, the UK, the US, Brazil, Argentina, Belgium, Italy and Spain - that list is a work in progress because, firstly, we have some very large end customers with which we deal directly. I'm not saying they won't let us move away from selling direct, but we are so entrenched with them in terms of our managed service offering and our portfolio that we just couldn't move away from that market.

How does changing from direct to channel differ from country to country?

It's not always a black and white, lights on/lights off scenario. For many [countries] it was, and we could clearly see where we could move it from direct to channel. But for those large nine it is more of a transition. I think it is also important to say that we will never stop selling direct in some of those countries. Germany, for example, is a huge market for us. We cannot separate ourselves from that. It is the same in the UK, with some of our government contracts that we could not have through our partners because of the way we engage with those customers.

What have been the challenges during transition from direct to channel?

I think the big challenge we had initially was the cultural change for the organisation. In terms of the direct guys, it is hugely culturally different to them letting go and working through a partner. We have also had to make sure the end customers are protected and that they are migrated across to partners properly.

How has the channel reacted?

We run a programme where we go country to country questioning our partners, and getting their views on how well we are doing and what they think. The feedback on that from around the world was very positive. It increased the amount of partners that said ‘as a result of what you've done, we will be more likely to invest more with you next year'. We still have work to do though; we don't think it's one big bed of roses - there are still things to do in terms of processes, for example. Politely, our heritage is [as] a German engineering company, so we've not been traditionally easy to deal with, which is why we are so focused on getting the right distributors to help us with that.