Toshiba 'harmonises' channel with programme shake-up

Vendor extending its points reward scheme across Europe

Toshiba has rejigged its partner programme in a bid to "harmonise" its European operations and boost its reach to smaller resellers.

William Biotteau, European channel director for the lifestyle product and services division, told CRN the programme update is based around three pillars.

The first pillar is around unifying internal communications between European countries in order to maximise the leads for partners, particularly in the SME space, Biotteau said.

The second pillar is going to boost the rebates for Toshiba's European distributors and provide them with an extra 1.5 per cent more if they extend their reseller base and reach out to smaller resellers.

The third pillar is around rewarding the resellers and will see its Win Win incentive scheme rolled-out across Europe. The scheme, initially limited to France, allows Silver and Gold partners to earn points that can be transferred into marketing funds, products or to purchase demonstration gifts including notebooks and tablets.

These points can be earned on the sale of Toshiba's Satellite Pro laptop (one point per PC), Tecra laptop (three points per PC), Portégé laptop (three points per PC) and docking stations and power units (three points).

The Win Win programme will be rolled out to the UK in the fourth quarter of 2015.

Biotteau said the partner programme update will hopefully help Toshiba to extend its channel reach and add between 1,000 and 1,500 resellers across Europe, "very fast".

"This is not impossible because in some countries we are very weak on the breadth," he said. "Like in Germany, and Germany has the biggest channel and by doing a good job in Germany we can really increase our number of resellers. When I say 1,500, its resellers buying products every quarter."

Biotteau was also very defiant about Toshiba's commitment to its partners.

"The channel for us is key; it's the DNA of Toshiba. We are not going back to direct; it's really clear with us and that's what partners like. With the new programme they can earn more with us."