Communication is what you need

Efficient levels of communication are vital to the IT industry, writes Sara Driscoll

While we are all fully aware, or at least should be, that communication is the key to successful channel relationships, actually getting messages across and more importantly understood, is a different matter.

Hewlett-Packard (HP), which has had a turbulent past couple of years in the channel, appears to really be making headway into more positive waters now. It has launched its new partner programme, which the majority of its resellers have reacted positively to and is investing cash into partners. The area that lets the vendor down however is its communication.

The problem, or rather challenge, that any company or even person for that matter, faces when communicating, is although they may feel they got their point across succinctly and with clarity, the person receiving the communication may be left feeling as though it was as clear as mud, because not everybody communicates in the same way.

For example, while HP has been ploughing time, money and effort into informing channel partners about the changes to its partner programme via email, one-to-one meetings, webcasting and phone calls, some partners were still left feeling as though it had been communicated to them via a tin can and a piece of string. This left many partners uncertain of their role or what was expected of them. And uncertainty breeds fear.

But HP has made increased efforts, and is by no means the only vendor which has suffered from channel communication problems.

It goes back to the problem that sometimes technology doesn’t help us communicate at all – that emailing someone you sit next to, or texting someone instead of calling, can often lead to miscommunication and misunderstanding. Phone giant Orange is now plugging the fact that it is a “communication evangelist” and has even started telling its users to turn their phones off to communicate once in a while.

So perhaps, until we have got it right, we ought to hold off calling our industry the Information Communication Technology sector just yet.