PP woos niche IBM resellers
Reseller woos Big Blue partners
VAR Portal Partnership (PP) is launching a reseller recruitment drive aimed at attracting IBM resellers to join its conglomerate.
PP, which was created through the partnership of four IBM resellers with different skill sets, is looking to recruit additional IBM resellers who have niche skills.
Steve Kaye, commercial director at PP, told CRN that IBM has made 62 software acquisitions and the cost of skilling up on each technology is too great for most resellers.
“We are creating an ecosystem that means we have greater skills within us as a group,” he said. “We already have the core IBM brands, including WebSphere, Lotus, Tivoli and the rest covered, but we are never going to cover it all. So we are looking for channel players with skills in niche software areas.
“We will help the resellers to do business with IBM, work their way around the various rebate schemes and marketing. In return we get a service and skill that we can sell to our customer base and they get all our skills to sell into theirs.”
Kaye said IBM considers PP as one of its top seven partners in EMEA since it was formed.
Jeremy Wray, channel sales executive for IBM software group, said the PP strategy is something the vendor encourages.
“When IBM buys a firm, a lot of its partners are technically trained, but some of them do not have the sales and marketing engine to get the business,” he said. “PP has got the sales and marketing skills, and has the core [IBM technology] skills, but they cannot be expected to skill up on everything.
“This is a growing trend; some partners are doing it on an ad hoc basis. Some are formal, while some have a more acquisitive strategy, such as Logicalis. This would really depend on the reseller’s own model.”
Ian Cook, chief executive of Logicalis, said: “There is room for both kinds of strategies in the channel. It depends on how core the skill is to your business; if it becomes a central part of your business then you need to do something about it.”