HDS unearths hidden gems for its resellers
New channel boss vows to move away from one-size-fits-all model
Hitachi Data Systems' new channel boss has vowed to equip resellers with a range of "hidden gems", including a facility for underwriting business transformation projects.
Neill Burton (pictured) joined the storage vendor in January after 11 years at one of its largest partners, Computacenter.
Talking to ChannelWeb, Burton admitted HDS had always ticked all the boxes but had offered nothing "exciting or unique" for its partners.
"I need to establish quite quickly a cultural change where we collaborate with partners in a unique way," he said.
HDS has the facility to underwrite the business case for the transformation of customers' storage environments, through its "transformational manager utility". The facility had previously been used only by its top SI partners, such as Atos Origin, and was not visible among its wider channel.
"This is the kind of thing we want to embed into our relationships with partners to help them acquire new customers," Burton said.
Making HDS more relevant to top partners such as Computacenter, SCC, Kelway and BT is a priority, along with establishing the vendor as the dominant data storage partner for a small number of mid-tier resellers in specific verticals.
This could include the likes of Viglen in the education sector and Esteem in Scotland and the public sector. "Trustmarque is famous for taking the cost out of people's software environements and it would be a small step for them to extend that into storage hardware," Burton added. "The other top-tier storage providers have partners that only sell their stuff, and HDS doesn't have that."
Meanwhile, distributors Avnet and Zycko will be given the task of servicing the long tail and incubating the "channel champions" of tomorrow, Burton added.
"I want to make a few big bets rather than having a one-size-fits-all channel strategy," he explained.
Burton worked closely with a range of storage vendors while at Computacenter, but maintained HDS has the edge in certain scenarios.
"If, as a reseller, you are taking Hitachi into a long-term customer, you know there is absolutely zero risk to the relationship because of its commitment to customer longevity," he said.
Alastair Kitching, group sales and marketing director at Esteem - which has been working with HDS for around six months - said: "We have had some good engagements in higher-education in Scotland. HDS aren't the biggest but they are big enough - and credible. They are more agile and flexible to work with than larger organisations."