CA Euro centre to help VARs
Firm opens telesales operation to create leads for partners
Computer Associates (CA) has opened a new 16.5m euro pan-European telesales operation targeting SMEs, with all of the leads going to channel partners.
Based in Barcelona, 100 multi-lingual, graduate-level staff will be housed in the new Customer Interaction Centre (CIC), which will focus on winning new business for VARs.
Leads will be given to resellers in an effort by CA to grow indirect revenues by a fifth annually. The centre is expected to employ 300 staff within three years.
CA said its CIC team will also co-ordinate high-level technical support for partners through best practices and a staff of software engineers.
It is expected to be fully operational by September.
Leads are expected to arrive through a UK co-ordination centre at CA's Slough headquarters.
"Our ambition is that this facility will grow channel sales by 20 per cent year-on-year across Europe," said Tony Martin, country manager at CA.
Axel Lagerborg, head of software and licensing at distributor Ingram Micro, was positive about the plan. "We're all for it. It's a well-thought-out approach," he said.
"CA has some very high-calibre people handling the account management processes."
Lagerborg added that Ingram's experience "corroborated" CA's target of increasing indirect revenues by a fifth year on year.