IBM empowers Channel Partners to sell Value Products
The tier-2 channel partners of IBM had never been so lucky to sell as they are these days, the reason being that they have been given to sell the mid-range and high-end IBM System X products, Blade Centre along with the entry-level tower products. Even they are now allowed to sell IBM P Series products and entry-level storage products for the SAN and NAS environment and tape drives and media.
Ajay Mittal, who is responsible for System X and Blade Centre, India/SA, IBM India Pvt. Ltd., as Business Unit Executive, says, “Within X Series, we have a range of models. It starts from one-way tower and ranges up to newly-launched Blade Centre S Chassis. There are 5–6 key products offerings we have under this, which we take to the market primarily through our VAR channel or tier-2 channel to sell.”
Besides, IBM DS3000 storage products, tape drives, media and entry-level P5 series of products are also selling through the channel. While on the one side IBM has extended the product portfolio for the channel partners in the tier-2 category to sell in the SMB market, on the other side IBM has made the sales process very easy and good experience.
Ajay says, “Traditionally, the majority of the tier-2 channel market was selling the entry-level one-way or two-way tower kind of product. These products are typically priced between 50 and 70 thousand rupees. And, every time the customers wanted any higher spec product, channel partners had to create a special kind of engagement with us. They had to give us the details of the customers, the pricing and configuration, etc., and put back to back order to IBM and waited for the supply to come. So, the sales cycle and the efforts required were humongous for channel to work on this process. Therefore, in the beginning of this year, we have brought about a major change in our strategy by expanding our offering to the channel.”
He adds,”“We have taken some of the higher-end and mid-range products to the channel the way we have offered the lower-end products, so that the channel could be able to sell Rs.2–3 lakh products of their own without involving IBM in the whole process. Therefore, we have brought out a handbook for the channel, which is being supplied to the partners every month. This booklet speaks about the product’s availability, configuration, price point and the whole information regarding the IBM server along with the scheme involved with it for a particular month.”
Along with this effort, the company is committed to make the stock readily available so that whenever the partner is servicing the customers, they would not have to wait for 4–5 weeks for the stock to be available with them. Ajay says that when IBM started this kind of activities with the channel partners, he could find that there is a clear spurt in the sale of IBM products. To justify, he says that the two-way rack server is selling through the channels three times now compared to the earlier sales number through the channel. The second change what he is observing is that the entry-level market is not growing, but the sales of the mid-range products are growing aggressively, which enables the partners to earn more margin and more customer engagements.
IBM is sending this booklet to the partners every month now, though the company was sending similar booklet in the past, but it was for a year’s time, which he believes does not reflect the best price of the product every time as in the IT industry, price and product’s spec keep on changing every time.
This booklet has been divided by different book marks or colourful tabs, which represent individual products. By opening the booklet by a tab, the partner can get the entire information as to what the products is, which customers he needs to position this product and what is the message around the product. The particular tab also speaks about the complete range of the models, their price, stock availability as per the configuration, the part number of the server models and compatibility matrix so the partner does not make any mistake in terms of configuration. Ajay adds, “More than the pricing, it was very critical to configure the servers at the customer’s place but by supplying this booklet, IBM has actually eliminated that issue.” Within 4–5 pages, the communications for the channel is complete. And, it has also helped IBM to deal with the employees’ churn of the partners effectively. The company need not have to train the new faces of the partners’ every quarter or every month face to face.
Besides the product information, the booklet also speaks about the promotions that the company runs for the entire month. Earlier, the promotion information was not reaching to the entire tier-2 partners equally, whereas now every partner is able to know about the promotions at a time. In addition to this, IBM is also distributing a CD on a monthly basis, which carries all the information that the booklet has. In addition to this, IBM is also enabling the partners’ tele sales engine by bringing out a poster, which carries the entire information of the products and related programmes in different colour combinations, which make the tele-sales people to read it with convenience and inform the customers over telephone with ease.
IBM has also kept the partners’ sales people in mind while devising this empowerment programme. It has brought out a monthly leaflet, which they can take along with them while on a sales pitch and it easily helps them to explain about the product configuration, price and availability to the customers.
With these initiatives, in almost 80–90 per cent of situations, where the partners wanted IBM’s intervention has gone away. Ajay adds,’“This is the outstanding thing that we have brought about besides the expansion of product offerings.” IBM is no more dealt by a select group of channel partners, the channel base is rising every time. In order to automate the engagement process and help the partners in various products related empowerments, IBM has launched a partners’ sales support centre at the beginning of this year.
Ajay says, “As IBM channel partners’ base in terms of dealing in higher-end product is increasing, to train them and sustain their skill sets is a very challenging factor. Therefore, we have set up this partner’s sale support centre, which is basically a call centre.” It has a set of brand specialists, who are available 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., five days a week through our toll-free number. What the channel partners are needed to do is to call them up and ask for the configuration, price, etc. and they can get information from them immediately.” “Today, we are doing almost 100 transactions per month through this contact centre. We have created special communication about this contact centre on the booklet. Even our channel partners have the individual executive mobile number,” he adds.
By putting this strategy in place, Ajay acknowledges that within six months’ time, IBM has seen a lot of success. He adds, “Our feeling is that our partners have a strong feeling about this programme.”
Finally…
Last year, IBM had planned to go closer to the partners and customers. Therefore, it has established its base in 13 B- and C-class cities, which includes cities like Nashik, Nagpur, Lucknow and Kanpur. Ajay believes that though the IT penetration in these cities is low, it is on the higher growth curve.
It is to remind that on tier-2 level, IBM has 400–500 channel partners. Out of them, 200- 250 partners engage with the vendor very actively on a monthly and quarterly basis, whereas others engage with the company on opportunities. However, the number of active partners of IBM is always rising after the company expanded its portfolio and launched a good communication strategy. All the partners are interfaced with the vendor through four distributors – Ingram Micro, Iris, Redington and eSys, though eSys has slowed down its IBM business in the country now. However, IBM has appointed Supertron to target the tier-2 channel partners.
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