Everything Channel

Avaya Announcement – Sensible or Folly?

Last Tuesday, May 26^th, Avaya announced that it is inviting Nortel and Siemens dealers to join the Avaya team through a fast-track program.  My jaw dropped and all I could think was that Avaya’s strategy seems very short term and very short sighted.  First of all, I’ll bet the announcement just made the day for existing Avaya partners, who already compete against other Avaya partners in the same geography.  Will Avaya give any thought to protecting these existing loyal partners?  I sure hope so!

 

One of the toughest challenges within the VoIP and UC industries has been the development of a successful reseller/partner channel.  It has become pretty obvious that the old reseller business model and sales strategy doesn’t work in the new world of converged voice, data and video.  Yet Avaya and Nortel’s partner programs have both been filled with too many “legacy” partners and too few “go getters”.  Will Avaya end up with more legacy partners – this time from Nortel?  So I’ll raise the point again…..  does Avaya really need more dealers who are “exiters” waiting to sell their business rather than change to the new model that I describe in “The Industry has Left its Reseller Channel Behind”?  Or does Avaya need the “go getters” that I describe in that same article?

 

And consider this…. if I was a savvy Nortel dealer, long before Avaya’s new program was announced, I would already have been exploring opportunities to bring my business into the changed world brought about by convergence, VoIP and unified communications – not to mention the current economic situation.  I would be looking for new vendor partners with both innovative products and a channel strategy that reflects the changed needs of the channel itself.  As a Nortel dealer, I would grab the opportunity to continue to move (or start to move) my company into the fast-paced world of UC by aligning with visionary vendors, and with other UC integrators/resellers that have heavy expertise on the data side but need my expertise on the voice side to provide complete UC solutions.  I’m not saying Nortel, Siemens and Avaya are not visionary – they all have some outstanding UC products.  But what they seem to lack is the ability to change their channel strategy and programs to keep abreast of the fast changes and new requirements that have overtaken the telecom world. 

 

With all of the phone calls that I’ve received from vendors asking if I can provide a list of Nortel dealers, is it crazy to imagine that every single Nortel dealer is already being courted by the likes of Mitel, NEC, Cisco, Microsoft and too many other manufacturers to name?  Right now, these dealers are in the midst of a “sellers market”.  They can pick and choose their vendor partners and if they are smart, in some cases, they can set the terms of the new “partnership”.   These dealers have a fantastic opportunity to put themselves in a position to successfully move forward in a rapidly changing technology world…. in an already changed business environment where customers’ buying requirements make the PBX (of any type) a pull-through item.  Most of all, they have a golden opportunity to once and for all shed their own mantle of “legacy” and join the movers and shakers who will be the successful dealers of tomorrow.

UC Manufacturers Doing Too Little to Help Reseller Channel

I don’t know about you, but I’m getting tired of hearing that “times are bad”.  I KNOW it’s true!  But what fascinates me is that so many manufacturers in unified communications, not to mention those in traditional datacom, are seeing revenue dropping yet they’re doing very little, if anything, to help their reseller channel sell in this changed buying environment.

It’s hard to dispute that the reseller channel (or lack thereof) has been one of the primary obstacles to the success of VoIP and unified communications.  Yet vendors continue to ignore the fact that the majority of resellers, from both traditional voice and traditional data, have too few sales and marketing skills to ever be really successful.  And if they’re not successful – guess what! – manufacturers won’t be successful either.

In one of my recent White Papers, I discussed the opportunities that savvy resellers will find because of the tough economy.  And I’ve talked to a number of resellers who are actually doing more business than ever before – because they’ve figured out how to market their business and how to sell real solutions.  But sadly, these resellers are the exception rather than the rule.  Too many resellers still need to acquire these skills, and frankly, it doesn’t appear as if manufacturers are doing much to help their channel partners in these areas.  Isn’t it a “rule” of marketing that the most important time to advertise is when sales are down – not when they’re up?  To draw a parallel, why are so many manufacturers pulling back on their partner programs….. or equally ridiculous, continuing the same programs that they used (not very successfully) when customers were still making capital expenditures?  If ever resellers needed the marketing resources and expertise that their vendor partners have, it is now.  And if ever those resellers needed help to re-focus to solution selling, it is now.  

RESELLER CHANNEL PARTNERS – HERE TODAY AND GONE TOMORROW?

We’re in some scary times!  Customers of all sizes – small business to enterprise – are worried.  And when they’re worried, they stop buying or buy much more wisely.  What does this mean to your reseller channel (and ultimately to you)?  Well, there’s the short answer – resellers are going to be in survival mode and many of them won’t make it!  And there’s the longer answer – resellers who have learned best business practices and to offer their customers business solutions will survive and some will thrive despite the economy; while those who have no solid future plan and are still selling technology and products will most likely disappear.  Where does that leave your company?

 

The current economic landscape offers a very real opportunity for vendors to make some changes in their tools and programs that support their reseller channel.  This landscape may force many vendors to get “it” right – finally.  For too many years vendors have been rewarding “bad” reseller habits that have led to the demise of many channel partners.  Now I’m not suggesting that every reseller who failed was worth having as a channel partner.  But I am suggesting that if a vendor is going to invest recruiting time and dollars plus “maintenance” time and dollars in a partner, why would the vendor want to support “bad” habits that lead to failure?  What are some of these bad habits?

• No current business plan in place
• No clear strategy for the future
• The sales process supports lowest price (low margin) sales
• No plans for improving sales and support processes
• Marketing (what little there is) focuses on products, not solutions 

Whatever the role of your company’s products in unified communications solutions – be it as obvious as unified messaging and presence or as subtle as managing or securing the voice/data network – we are going to be forced into helping our reseller channel partners become better sales and business people.  What will be the reward for us as vendors? A channel that keeps selling even in tough times.  And when times get better – a channel that is very successful at driving revenue to our door!

 

Few resellers have a financial cushion that will see them through months of low sales.  So vendors need to work quickly to create tools and strategies that will help their channel partners survive and ultimately thrive. 

1.      Create sales/marketing tools that focus on business problems and solutions

2.      If appropriate to your products, give your resellers specific examples of how your products protect existing investments while solving those business problems

3.      Look at the vertical markets that are still doing well in this economy and help your resellers penetrate those markets with real business problem solvers

4.      Reward your reseller channel partners who invest in solution sales training and provide incentives for real solution sales

5.      Reward those same partners for engaging in best business practices

a.       Doing a skills and resource assessment to determine strengths and weaknesses

b.      Creating a short and long term business strategy based on those assessments

c.       Developing programs and strategies for strengthening their relationship with their existing customers

d.      Partnering to fill expertise gaps and expand geographic footprint

e.       And on and on…… 

 

If you don’t believe the value of re-evaluating your reseller strategy and programs, take a look at the top 20% of your partners.  More than likely they are succeeding because they have already figured out the “success formula”.  What about the other 80%?  What would your sales revenue look like if you helped them figure out that same formula?  And for those who can’t or won’t learn and change – they won’t be around in 12 months to drain your time and resources for little return.

 

UC Vendors Can't Afford to Sit Back

Unified Communications vendors are all trying to recruit from the same tiny pool of successful "convergence integrators" - those VARs/integrators/telecom dealers who have already transitioned to solution selling and begun offering UC solutions of some sort. Or else these same vendors are counting on having at least a portion of their existing channel make the transition from selling "products" to selling UC solutions. I've written a number of articles discussing the steps that resellers will need to take to make a successful transition - covering sales, technical and business issues. But somehow I overlooked one very key element in the transition. And this element may prove to be one of the toughest challenges that data VARs/integrators and telecom dealers face as they move into UC.

Since the UC Channel Summit in May, I have been exchanging emails with Steve Burgess, President of Guidant Partners, about the challenges in front of resellers wanting to become "UC integrators", and Steve commented that the toughest part of re-engineering his business involved changing the culture of the entire company to focus everyone on "business needs" rather than "product".  We focus on "solution selling" for the sales staff, but Steve suggests that EVERYONE in the company has to be thinking in terms of business needs and problems.... which means a major shift away from thinking in terms of technology and products.

So Steve's thoughts set me to thinking...  Isn't there at least one UC vendor who already has a good solution selling training program for their own staff?  I know IBM had one years ago because I was fortunate enough to be on the receiving end of the training - and I think I remember modules that actually focused on the various components of a business, as well as modules that talked about various verticals.  Or am I getting senile?

Anyway, I encourage UC vendors who are serious about their "UC reseller channels" to think about a program to help resellers better understand and define the issues and needs faced by businesses of every size and complexity.  It doesn't have to be fancy.... but it does have to have relevance.  Does anyone know of such a program available today?