HP to ramp up lead generation next year

Vendor intends to invest more in its partner base in 2009 to help them generate more business

HP has made a pledge to ramp up its lead generation activities for its UK channel partners in 2009.

The vendor has set up a dedicated telesales organisation, known as Territory Sales, aimed exclusively at SME end users to drum up demand. The telesales initiative will cover the whole EMEA region and will concentrate on driving revenue growth in HP Enterprise Server and Storage (ESS) business.

Also following a successful start of the HP ESS deal registration portal, known as Partner for Growth, the vendor has also extended its deal registration capabilities to additional Gold level Preferred Partner specialists, and has made it easier for existing partners to register new business.

From next February, subject to local criteria, qualifying partners can gain access to additional discounts on new business wins across the HP product portfolio when they register new deals.

In addition HP and Microsoft joint Frontline partners will be able to secure extra rebates from Microsoft on elements of its unified communications and virtualisation software.

Dave Poskett, director Solutions Partner Organisation at HP, said: “I’m genuinely optimistic about our industry for next year. HP is market leading in most of our markets and we plan to continue to invest in R&D and our channel. We feel we are bucking the trend and we are extremely dependent on our relationship with our partners to take our product message to market.”

Over 2008, Poskett said the vendor had generated over 6,000 channel leads across EMEA, held 4,000 telemarketing days and produced 250 case studies to show end users what HP and its partners can do.

“But we still need to do a better job and generate more leads,” he said.

Poskett added that the vendor is also looking to invest more in its Gold partner base and had made progress in its other partner offerings over the year including Smart Portal, which has been redesigned to make it faster for Preferred Partners to access details on specialisations, training opportunities and promotions.