Bloxx to shun direct sales in favour of channel

Web filtering vendor wants to double sales through UK resellers over the next 18 months under new sales director

Bloxx has charged its new sales director with putting the web filtering vendor's entire business on a channel-focused footing.

The vendor, which has carved out a reputation for being a low-cost alternative to Websense, currently draws less than half of its sales from the channel in its home UK market, and sells almost exclusively direct in the US, throwing it into conflict with partners.

Mark Gibson has been enlisted from Capita as sales director to "turn this on its head" as Bloxx bets on the channel as the best route to accelerate its growth.

By the end of this year, partners should be generating at least 65 per cent of UK sales, Gibson said.

"Part of my role was to do an audit to look across the entire organisation, from sales and support to commercial contracts and business development, to understand how we better support our channel partners," he said.

"I'd be disappointed and surprised if we've not doubled in 18 months the revenue we put through the channel. But really it's about putting the whole business on a channel footing."

Bloxx's relationships with many of its 40 UK resellers have festered in recent years, prompting the vendor to throw its weight behind a handful of committed allies including NTS, European Electronique, Caretower, Cygnia and Academia.

More partners are being sought in Bloxx's core verticals such as health, education and local government.

"We are agreeing revenue targets with them and look forward to doing more business with them over the coming quarters and years," Gibson said.

Jon Busfield, managing director of Cygnia, welcomed the change in rhetoric, saying his salesforce had often butted heads with Bloxx's direct-selling staff in the past.

"We would tell them we'd found a prospect, only to be informed they were already talking to them," he said. "Rather than doing double-share on the commission, the shutters would come down and we couldn't sell the solution, and that would put off our sales guys."

Busfield said he expected such skirmishes to be eradicated.

"They have already changed their behaviour," he said. "There have already been a couple of deals we would have been excluded from in the past that they've opened the door on, which is encouraging."