HP bets big on SMB space

Vendor announces plans to cosy up to smaller businesses, with channel playing a key role in its strategy

HP has sharpened its focus on the UK SMB space, voicing an intention to get closer to smaller players than it ever has before.

At an event in central London this morning, Nick Wilson, vice president and managing director of HP UK and Ireland, said the firm is looking to establish deeper links with SMBs, with 99 per cent of UK businesses being classed as such.

"We really want to support SMEs. We think it is important," he said. "SMEs account for 50 per cent of the GDP of this country and employment. We want to make ourselves far more friendly and able to do business with this sector."

He said HP currently has 600 SMBs in its supply chain, 400 of which are in the public sector, but the vendor wants to grow that to 750 in 2012. He is also keen for HP to help break down the complexity of government IT contracts and get more SMBs involved.

The vendor questioned 1,000 members of its dedicated SME LinkedIn group and found that a third are confident of achieving growth in 2012.

"The UK is very good at talking itself into a spiral of doom and we need to start doing the opposite," Wilson added.

HP will appoint its own "SME champion" to kick-start its strategy and ensure the vendor gives the right focus to the market, and it has also signed up to the government's Prompt Payment Code, he said.

Channel partners also figure heavily in HP's SMB plans, Wilson insisted. "In total 50 per cent of our product business in the UK goes to market via our channel partners," he said. "We have 8,000 channel partners and 7,000 of those are SMEs. If we can sign up more channel partners through LinkedIn and get more partners on board, it will be a good start.

"We have one of the best channel partner programmes in the country and we want to sign up more partners," he said. "They are the ones that can continue to reach and strengthen parts of the market that we can never get to." Summing up, Wilson stressed HP was keen to get its SMB approach right.

"We have to take the lead. We know some of the targets we have set are pretty ambitious but we are keen for the ICT industry to be kept vibrant."