A Compellent case for worldwide success
Storage vendor guns for global growth and is keen to practise good communication with its partners
Brian Bell: International expansion is our priority
One thing Compellent cannot be accused of is lacking ambition. This past year has seen the company announce plans to become the storage market’s next billion-dollar vendor and to begin work on the worldwide rollout of its product line and channel operations.
For example, September marked the launch of the Compellent brand in Australia, where it now has five channel partners and a Melbourne-based head office.
Brian Bell, vice president of worldwide sales at Compellent, said the company already has a presence in 35 markets and, as well as Australia, is intent on developing channels in China and the rest of Asia.
“International expansion is our key priority at the moment,” he said. “We are building critical mass in the UK and US and are working towards a similar point in the rest of our territories.”
Bell was quick to stress that attaining critical mass in the UK does not mean it will curtail its partner recruitment activities.
“We will still recruit partners in the UK, just not hundreds and thousands of them,” he said.
Alastair Kitching, chief operating officer at Compellent VAR Esteem Systems, cites the lack of competition in the vendor’s partner network as one of the best things about dealing with the company.
“The firm is not over-distributed in the UK channel at the moment and that makes it easy to engage with,” he said. “But, if it wants to grow, it will need more partners and more staff to ensure we all get the same amount of attention.”
Kitching added that he would also like to see the company appoint a UK distributor, a route Compellent has hinted at going down before.
“The biggest bonus would be that we could buy stock and agree prices in pounds sterling, rather than in dollars,” he said. “At the moment, if there is a currency fluctuation in the wrong direction, it can leave you exposed on deals.”
Distribution dilemma Bell said that while there are no immediate plans to appoint a distributor in the UK, the company is always open to feedback from partners on how it can improve its channel strategy.
“As soon as the company started, we decided that our products would only ever be sold through the channel and that we would treat our partners in the same way as we would our own employees,” he said.
“We have continued to execute on that strategy for the past seven years and evolve our channel support and programmes based on the feedback we get from partners about what we can do to support them better.”
As an example of this, Bell cites the firm’s recently launched Field First initiative, which was introduced in response to partner requests for more timely updates on the company’s activities.
“Our partners told us that, as our core sales team, they needed information about the company and our products earlier,” he said.
The second Field First webinar took place last month and Compellent says that an average of 200 to 250 channel partners from across the globe have tuned in to each one so far.
As well as partners, the quarterly webinars are also attended by the company’s troop of channel managers and field-based business development teams.
An open channel
Liem Nguyen, director of corporate communications at Compellent, explained: “As part of our outreach to partners, our field teams meet with channel partners and they listen to the call together.”
Bell said the exercise is good for partners, but also the vendor’s staff, too.
“It gives everyone something to focus on and the partners have given us some very positive feedback on it,” he said. “They have also told us that they want more of the same.”
VAR Atlanta Technology joined the vendor’s partner programme in March and has been impressed with the firm’s attitude and openness with its channel to date.
Simon Kelson, managing director of Atlanta Technology, said: “Typically, we deal with their local sales and technical teams. If we need it, though, it is very easy for us to get in contact with the staff at their headquarters in the US, too.”
Knowing the vendor does not employ a direct sales team has also made embarking on joint customer pitches a more comfortable experience, said Kelson.
“It gives us an assurance that they will be 100 per cent loyal to any deal that we bring to the table,” he said.
“Also, if you register a deal with them and do not quite have the right mix of competencies to deliver on it, they encourage you to lean on them to fill in any gaps, rather than pass it on to another partner.”