HP picks magnificent seven for mid-market push

Vendor's PSG division guns for a bigger share of the mid-market with latest initiative

HP’s Personal Systems Group (PSG) is on a mission to grab a larger slice of the mid-market and has hand-picked seven VARs to help drive its push.

Kelway, Misco, Insight, Vohkus, SCC, Softcat and XMA were the winners among 14 partners that underwent an intensive tender process to be selected for the initiative, which will target firms with between 100-1,000 employees. The scheme officially kicked off in November.

Speaking to CRN, Trevor Evans, channel sales director for PSG UK and Ireland, said the mid-market was an area that HP has not focused on enough over the years.

“The mid-market space is the largest one next to the consumer space and everybody wants to play on that turf,” he said. “Our strategy in the past has been to come to market with good products, RoI and price, and work that through the channel. Now it is about coming to market with the right messaging and showing customers outcomes, rather than speeds, feeds and price-led propositions.”

Evans said the vendor has taken a two-pronged approach to the space, first by recruiting a team of dedicated people at HP’s Erskine campus in Scotland, which will be creating mid-market leads by calling companies directly; and second, fulfiling those leads through its selected seven partners, which will also generate their own leads at the same time.

“There are more than 30,000 organisations operating in the mid-market space and between HP and our partners we can make a much bigger impact,” Evans said. “We have pretty ambitious targets and objectives in the space and we have got to make our messaging concise.”

He added that the number of resellers included in the initiative may also expand in time.

Martin Hellawell, managing director of Softcat, said: “This is an excellent initiative. New business acquisition is vital for companies that want to grow and gain market share.

“Softcat’s objectives are perfectly aligned with HP’s on this one and I have been very impressed with the way the channel has been fully integrated into this programme from the outset. As always, the quality of actual execution will be the key to success, but I couldn’t be more positive about the concept.”

Evans added HP’s initiative would also encourage collaboration with the other HP business units and would encourage intelligence and prospect sharing among the select group.

HP is also planning a similar assault on the education market, he revealed.