New HDS EMEA boss promises clearer regional strategy
Cris Duddridge aims to help VARs move away from box selling and standardise the region's strategy
Hitachi Data Systems' (HDS) new EMEA channel boss has vowed to help resellers move away from selling traditional hardware and towards solutions-orientated offerings.
Cris Duddridge (pictured), who took on the new role in April after a three-year stint running HDS' global systems integrator business, wants to standardise the vendor's channel strategy across all EMEA countries, become more sales oriented and help develop resellers' knowledge of solution selling.
Duddridge takes over from Johannes Kunz who moves to lead HDS' file and content business in EMEA.
HDS has created internal and external working groups to help plan how to standardise its channel strategy, according to Duddridge, who said that in doing do, the firm will make working with the vendor clearer than ever for partners.
He said: "Over the next six or seven months there will be changes which makes it very much more clear to partners about the value they will get from HDS in a way we have not shown before."
On top of the wider strategic channel plans, he said he wants to lure VARs away from traditional box selling over to a solutions-orientated sales model, but added that he wants to work with resellers and not force them to change their businesses.
He said: "If [resellers] continue to just sell boxes for the sake of selling boxes, they are going to struggle. Customers are looking for more value from all their partners, and the smaller partners are finding it difficult to develop these solutions as they do not have the resources. I think it is part of our responsibility to be able to offer them these types of services.
"It's not about changing our existing partner base, it's about working with our existing partners to help develop their skills so they can move from the traditional type of hardware reseller into a more solutions-orientated environment which can demonstrate more value to their customers and in turn make their business more valuable."
Move to the cloud
Duddridge spoke at the launch of the vendor's new cloud service HCP (Hitachi Content Platform) Anywhere, which the firm claims is an enterprise answer to Dropbox and iCloud-type storage offerings.
Duddridge said HDS is looking for hosting resellers to take the product to market, and added that the company is on the hunt for quality partners and is not necessarily looking for a set quantity.
He said: "We want to use our EMEA teams to go and drive the [HCP] recruitment process for new partners. Because we have the skill and understanding of the solutions, we can have those meaningful conversations in a way that perhaps the local guys cannot.
"The local guys are extremely good at managing the day-to-day activities of a reseller partner. This also gives us the ability to control it at an EMEA level so that everything we do in terms of partner development is in line with EMEA strategy that we have as an organisation."