Channel companies – distributors, resellers, VARs and VADs – are sometimes the invisible players in IT. Yet these are the people who are often closest to the customer in the biggest customer segment: small and medium-sized businesses (SMB). “Close” in this case means that they get the call when the server or network goes down in a convenience store, law office, or design firm, and it’s their personnel who fix things. In companies with 100 employees or less, there may not be a dedicated IT person, so the outside servicer is critical to keeping things running. They know the customer’s site best, having sold the products and likely done the installation. This is an intimacy that the largest product manufacturers typically don’t have with any but their largest accounts.
And the channel firms increasingly value the SMB services business since it’s been making up a larger percentage of their profits each year, as product margins shrink. Services including configuration, roll-out, staging, implementation, field maintenance, and first-level phone support are often the domain of the qualified reseller. Good service creates stickiness for both the reseller and the OEM whose products are being sold, installed, and maintained, and bad service does the opposite. So there’s an incentive for both OEM and reseller to get it right.
Typically the large OEM offers a tiered set of choices for channel partners who want to be involved in services. The partner can be a referral agent back to the OEM regarding services opportunities, sell OEM-branded services themselves with the OEM doing delivery, or sell and deliver the OEM’s services. In the latter case, the reseller will typically want and need training and certification on delivering the OEM’s services.
We’ve seen lots of tension develop between OEMs and their channel partners regarding services. Typically the reseller wants a piece of the more profitable services, with the OEM not willing to give them up. Or the reseller has to pay so much for training and certification it’s not worth the trouble. Or the OEM partners with a larger third-party servicer who ends up competing with the channel partners. A poorly run channel services program can wind up with everyone unhappy.
EMC’s Velocity Authorized Services Network (ASN)
EMC has invested consistently in its partner services network over the years and offers support services as well as professional services options to its partners on a worldwide basis. In addition, partners can choose to specialize in an area such as consolidation, backup or archiving and receive training on delivering end-to-end solutions in those areas.
On the support side, customers can qualify to deliver full, pre- and post-implementation support services. Partners manage profitability by owning and managing all aspects of the partner support for EMC technology, including field resources and logistics. Member partners own the contractual relationship with the customer and can escalate issues to EMC’s global support team if needed.
EMC’s initiative with its recently announced VNXe array, geared to smaller businesses, reflects its commitment to that segment. Good partner support services – even with a product like VNXe that is designed to be easy to set up and operate – will be critical to that initiative.
