Compaq chops senior partners in sales rejig

Hardware New Year will see up to #60m of annual UK product put through distribution.

Compaq has relegated some of its top-tier resellers, forcing them to source from distributors in an attempt to concentrate its efforts more on direct sales.

Senior channel sources claimed Computacenter, Compel, SCC, ICL, Skillsgroup and Action Computer Supplies have been unofficially informed by Compaq that they will continue to buy direct.

But between #50 million and #60 million of Compaq's annual UK product which is sold direct to named resellers will be put back through distributors starting from 1 January. It is thought that the vendor is aiming to reduce its directly fulfilled resellers from about 50 to less than 10.

One of the casualties was Morse Computers, which has a dedicated Compaq division, in what was seen as the beginning of a direct reseller cull by Compaq.

Mark Byatt, marketing director at Morse Group, confirmed the reseller would no longer be able to source product from Compaq. 'We're finding that Compaq business is increasingly less significant to us. Getting fulfilment from a distributor is much smoother in some ways.'

Compaq has a direct relationship with Elcom, Business Systems Group, Basilica, Elite Network Group and MicroWarehouse. The status of their relationships was not known.

Sources said Compaq had provided its partners with a list of resellers which have to buy from distributors, but they were not being forced to buy from named companies.

A senior source claimed Compaq had already confirmed details of its account management structure for 1999 and the vendor had stepped up account management, with a reporting line from the resellers up to UK managing director Joe McNally.

Compaq was unavailable for comment.