Specialisation is the way forward

Serving specifics may seem like more work but the rewards are tangible, argues Harvey Smith

Many companies see technology as a way of supporting their recovery and improving their efficiency. Meanwhile, virtualisation has revolutionised the way enterprise IT is delivered, and scalable cloud computing is now accepted as the best platform for modern, information-driven businesses.

For the channel, the key to exploiting the opportunities is, as always, to provide the right technology, demonstrating clearly what benefits a technology can bring to the customer's operations and showing how implementation can be achieved.

Resellers need a solid understanding of the issues each customer faces, as well as a keen awareness of the role IT can play in helping customers respond to their issues, and the ability to deliver on this advice.

VARs may stand out from the crowd by focusing their expertise on particular verticals or customer types. A thorough, specialised approach is more likely to deliver the best end results.

Your vendor partner should support you with technical or market training. For example, the vendor may offer accreditation in supplying their technology for certain business requirements or scenarios. Storage vendors may offer training in deploying technology to support datacentre virtualisation.

Integrated training can also help VARs expand their services offering and build additional revenue streams, by helping them cater more comprehensively to certain customer types. Resellers can achieve greater autonomy through their expanded abilities, and be able to more easily identify new business opportunities.

Everyone in the supply chain will gain. The customer gets to rely on a partner that has the knowledge to oversee specific infrastructure deployments. The vendor benefits from increased sales and greater satisfaction with its products.

Yet many vendors take a back seat when it comes to how their technology is delivered. This can threaten their reputation and relationship with customers.

Vendors have moved away from "one size fits all" products, and customers increasingly expect to be able to select a product that has been designed specifically for their needs. A hospital is likely to want a different storage or data management product than an investment bank would require.

Resellers can also augment their offering with the right support for a particular type of customer. This is an area where vendors must ensure their channel programme really delivers what partners need.

Harvey Smith is UK and Ireland channels director at Hitachi Data Systems (HDS)