Generating Deals in 4 to 6 Weeks? Seriously?

What vendors are asking about this week at Amazon Consulting

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The VAR 500:Strange Bedfellows

Beth Vanni

I’m so glad I get time to sit on airplanes. Really. It seems to get the unlikely place where I get the best, most cogent reading done, while locked in those tiny seats. This morning that reading involved the much-awaited CRN VAR 500 issue (May ‘09) – OK, I’m a little behind….
So, there are three things I’m usually interested in with this issue;
1)  Who’s in the top ten?
2) how many new entrants have made it onto the list?
3) What the average year-to-year growth rate is of the overall group?

Granted,I’m still waking up to my first cup of Southwest Airlines coffee and I’m trying to glean a couple of these three things. But, immediately I have to do a double-take. It’s in the second sentence of the article. “The figure ($597,588,818,754 – total VAR500 annual revenues) is roughly $200 billion (yes, billion) more than last year’s number, largely because of the inclusion of the vendor services arms.” Huh? The vendor’s services arms?

Vendors were placed on a separate list of 25 in 2007 and 2008 and called “the Vendor Top 40” listing. The publication explains that the vendors were reintegrated onto the list, “recognizing their value as solution providers.” Well, yes, vendors add a lot of value to the IT market through their technologies and services. And, through the customer reach and services of their channel partners. But, isn’t putting the vendors’ own direct services divisions in clear and direct ranking competition with their very own channel partners IN A CHANNEL FOCUSED PUBLICATION pretty much heresy?   Now, I’m smart enough to understand that one size doesn’t fit all.  Would anyone really argue that IBM Global Services is a major force among independent global systems integrators in the IT market?  No, unless they wanted to forfeit their job.

What’s the Deal? Multi-vendor “DealReg” Is Here

Live from Diane’s Desk -  weekly update on what’s happening around Amazon Consulting – channel news, trends and partnering matters.

Diane highlights vendor’s need for clear visibility into deal pipeline and new solution to make it easier for channel partners to register multiple vendor deals in one partner portal.

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Second Day from Cisco Partner Summit with Diane Krakora

Highlights and perspective on the second day of Cisco’s Partner Summit

• Technology Vision Day
• Data Center Announcements  (code name California)
• Small Business Pro Services

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First Day from Cisco Partner Summit with Diane Krakora

Let’s hear it for Diane’s First Video Blog – Made possible by the generous gift of Flip Video cameras to all Partner Summit attendees!

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It’s All About the Service – A Lesson In iPhone Loss

Beth Vanni

OK, so it’s my fault.  I was at the circus with my kids, using  my new new Apple iPhone 3G as a camera (can’t miss those shots with the elephants and the Bermese Pythons).  It dropped out of my lap.  Either that or the Snow Cone vendor was eyeing it the whole time – that’s my theory.  Either way, it’s gone, and the last 24 hours of my life have not been the same!

Circus Casualty

Of course, everyone knows that the iPhone is only available in the U.S. through one exclusive service provider, AT&T.   What an OEM deal that must have been!   An old friend of  mine who works for Apple admits the Apple/AT&T deal was so rich that the royalties paid by AT&T to Apple are paying for a good chunk of the ongoing R&D on the iPhone technology.   Either way, I’m now addicted. Yes, I actually do use the AppStore for all those thousands of plug-in apps. And, I use the Safari web browser …. a lot. I never call 411 anymore. And I didn’t buy a Garmin, because most of the GPS functionality I need I can do on the iPhone. And finally, for the first time in my 25+ year career, I really am getting emails pushed live down to my iPhone and can actually be pretty productive when NOT in front my laptop. Amazing. This device can really make anyone from the 12 year old text-maniac to the 52 year old corporate sales executive both really productive and entertained at the same time.

Who Drives Partner Growth: Channel Sales Managers vs. the “Community”

Beth Vanni

The buzz about the power of social networking is almost inescapable.   At today’s Channel Focus North America conference here in San Diego, Luanne Tierney, the VP of Cisco’s Global Channel marketing function shared a great story about the power of “community collaboration”.  Her company’s CTO recently tailored her technology roadmap presentation within ½ hour before she presented it to a very important group of Cisco’s biggest customers.  But more interesting was that she did that from her hotel room based on feedback she was getting from a dozen loyal Twitter followers.  Talk about tapping into the “community” and responding!

As usual, this Channel Focus conference tries to understand trends in channel development and enablement.  Which partner types are vendors investing in?  How are their channel programs driving growth?  Well, this year’s conference is really conflicted around the topic of how to impact partner growth.   There are two very divided camps – one that is struggling with all the age-old issue of the Channel Sales Manager role and how they drive partner engagement, loyalty and growth.   The other group is focused completely on the stimulating and vendor-independent power of partner “communities”  as a means for partners to expand their associations and grow.

Passing It On

Diane Krakora

During these economic hard times, stories abound of people making a difference in their community, giving back to their social network and passing on support to the next generation. I don’t know if there are more good deeds being done now or we are so hungry for any good news that these acts of kindness are being reported more. In a way, it doesn’t matter, the awareness is being heightened. There’s the story of the chain of people paying the toll for the next car behind them, and the “free” café that serves the local homeless population fresh nutritious food (and the non-homeless who pay “what they can”) or the random man who pre-pays for the woman’s food in line at the grocery store (who can’t make the food stamps go far enough to feed her family).

I witnessed this type of selflessness this week within our channel community. The speakers at the Baptie Channel Focus event this week all passed on their knowledge, experiences and wisdom to the next generation of channel professionals. Some of the speakers were sponsors and were there selling their wares to the attendees, and some of the speakers were well respected channel leaders like Luanne Tierney of Cisco, Sheila O’Neil of Panasonic, Mike Haines with Microsoft and Stephen DiFranco from Lenovo. Talking with Maurizio Capuzzo, long time Channel Focus favorite Italian (formerly of Symbol), I discovered a giving spirit   in our channel ecosystem. Not only was he, like the rest of the speakers, willing to give two days out of the office to impart their knowledge on a relevant topic, but Maurizio also took vacation time and spent his own money to travel from New York to San Diego to participate. When my eyes twinkled with gratitude, he nonchalantly said “I enjoy passing it on”.

I am so inspired by this generous act to pass on knowledge to channel professionals, that we are dedicating our May webinar to the next generation of channel leadership. On May 14th at 11am PDT, please join me as I discuss careers in channels with four great channel chiefs:

•Allison Watson, SVP Worldwide Channels, Microsoft
•Keith Goodwin, SVP Worldwide Channels, Cisco
•Steve Houck, GM Latin America (former VP WW Channels), VMware
•Leonard Iventosch, VP Channel Sales, Isilon

Enjoy the lively discussion about their career choices, trials and joys of being a channel chief. And who knows, maybe you’ll inspired to pass on your expertise as well.

Register for Webinar

Partner Credit Crunch

By Tim Low

Every day the news is full of information regarding the worldwide financial and credit crisis.  While the economic “downturn” is affecting every aspect of IT business from overall sales to an increased emphasis on green computing, the reduction of available credit is a fundamental business change that has the potential to drastically change the IT channel model. While it’s not as sexy as a headline describing a looming depression, if partners are unable to buy products, they can’t sell them!

We are already seeing a drastic reduction in the available credit, with IBM Global Financing terminating a program that provided multivendor reseller financing. While distributors claim to not have reduced their lines of available credit, as the economy takes its toll on VARs, we will definitely see distributors increase their vigilance in reviewing open lines of credit. And the smallest VARs that rely on credit card and home equity financing have seen those lines  arbitrarily reduced or terminated with no review of the VAR business financials. This is not only affecting smaller VARs., we hear reports of $100M+ partners reviewing their available credit and looking for creative financing. The Channel Insider 2009 Market Pulse Report, a biannual study of economic activity and key performance indicators of the North America technology reseller and services channel, indicates  over half of partners surveyed are concerned with tightening credit and payment terms.

What Channel Challenges are Keeping You Up at Night?

Diane Krakora

Amazon Consulting recently gathered 30 people in our semi-annual channel executive round table.  We met to discuss channel trends, find best practices for common challenges and network with industry peers.  Here are some highlights of the discussion.

Coping With Economic Realities
The first issue on everyone’s mind was the economic downturn and possible recession, so we opened with that topic.  Most of the vendors felt  that effectively leveraging partners is even more important as the economy softened.  Most of the attendees were looking to boost revenues and profitability by expanding channels, not contracting them. The smaller vendors felt pressure to quickly open up the channels and engage faster to hit revenue goals.  They were all feeling the pressure to manage their fixed costs (i.e. headcount) and “produce more with less” – which seems to be the current battle cry for effectively leveraging partners. The larger vendors were also experiencing increasing conflict in the channel as more partners pursue fewer deals, and large customers start requiring the vendors to also have “skin in the game.”