HP first for DTI accreditation

Vendor creates 'Centres of Excellence'

Hewlett Packard (HP) has become the first vendor to announce that its reseller scheme is in line with the Department of Trade and Industry's (DTI's) Technology Means Business (TMB) accreditation and standards initiative.

The HP programme will accredit resellers as 'Centres of Excellence' and replace the former 'Office Centres' scheme. The programme, to be rolled out immediately, will also offer resellers the chance to go on to become accredited under the DTI's independent standards initiative.

"We wanted to up the quality and penetration of our resellers and to cover as much of the DTI's training syllabus in our programme as possible," said Mike Thomas, business development manager at HP.

The government-backed TMB accreditation scheme is being administered by the Institute of Management (IoM) and is part of the Government's 'UK Online for Business' initiative, attempting to get more small to medium sized enterprises (SMEs) into ebusiness.

"HP has been the first company to align its training programme with the TMB accreditation, and so has the privilege of being first in," explained Neil Southern, director of standards and qualifications at the IoM.

"The scheme is independent and open to anyone who deals with the SME IT sector, and there is interest from the wider IT community. We are speaking with some other big vendors at the moment," he added.

Duncan Wyeth, sales director at HP reseller Serion Logic, said the linked schemes would provide HP resellers with a distinct advantage. "This type of kite-mark initiative from the DTI will mean that SMEs can see and acknowledge the accreditation as part of our skills set," he said.

HP resellers will have to fulfil certain criteria to become eligible for the Centres of Excellence scheme, including £200,000 of yearly HP turnover, a good level of skills, a broad HP portfolio and customer references.

The company hopes to have up to 200 Centres of Excellence resellers within a year.