Cherwell squares up to BMC as it hunts UK partners

IT service management vendor says it is taking 'very significant' market share from competitors as it expands further into Europe

IT service management vendor Cherwell is looking for about three large systems integrators in the UK as it expands into Europe.

The vendor - which was founded in Colorado in 2007 and launched in the UK around six years ago - has recently launched channels in Portugal, Spain, France and the Nordics.

Andy White, vice president of EMEA at Cherwell, said the vendor currently has five partners in the UK, and is hoping to have seven or eight in the territory by the end of the year.

"[We are looking for] larger systems integrators which have an existing client base that might be using legacy technology. We have a very compelling alternative," he said.

Cherwell focuses on IT service management, asset and licence management, and dependency mapping and discovery. White said that what sets the vendor apart from its competitors - which he named as BMC and ServiceNow - is that its services are all cloud based and can be operated in its private cloud, the customer's private cloud or in the public clouds Azure and AWS.

White said Cherwell is actively marketing to both BMC and ServiceNow's customers.
"The majority of the work we are doing now is replacing either BMC or ServiceNow," he explained. "So we are targeting organisations that are using those technologies. There are very few green-field environments; everybody is using something. But there is a big churn of people looking to replace expensive, non-agile technologies for a new software platform.

"In a market that is growing seven per cent, we are growing 40 to 50 per cent. We are taking very significant market share from all our major competitors."

White said that between 65 and 75 per cent of sales in the UK are currently done direct, but that is changing.

"I can see the channel revenue growing, because we have access to only a small percentage of the market," he said. "There is a percentage of the market that will only buy through their trusted partners. We don't really have any channel conflict at the minute, because we have a very mature partner programme.

The vendor's partner programme does not have tiers, White explained, because "you are either a partner or you aren't."

He said: "We have different margins but I don't segment them. I don't believe in the silver, gold model. You are either trained or not trained. Margins are solely based on your revenue commitment to Cherwell."

CRMworks has been a partner with Cherwell since 2009, and its director for sales and marketing, Tony Probert, said: "It has been a good experience for us so far, and I hope it continues to be so. What has been put in place for partners is working well for us. I can't think of anything they need to do other than continue to enhance brand awareness, so that it helps us with the activities we do."