Hewlett-Packard’s new Americas channel chief has no plans yet to overhaul the company’s channel program.
“We’re on a great course with our channel partners and we’re going to continue that,” Adrian Jones told industry reporters in a telephone news conference on Friday.
Jones, who had been senior vice-president for worldwide sales and services at storage networking solutions maker McData Corp. (now owned by Brocade Communications Systems), and before that VP for worldwide sales at Quantum Corp., has become HP’s vice-president and general manager of the solutions partners organizations for the Americas.
He takes over at a company which has been on a roll recently, recording 14 quarters of growth and displacing Dell as the largest worldwide shipper of desktops, notebooks and servers.
Jones said he wants to continue that trend in part not only by talking directly to them but also though regular Webinars. Over the next 30 days he plans to meet many of them personally, and made it clear he doesn’t only want to hear from cheerleaders.
“I don’t want to go just to the best accounts that love HP,” he said. “I want to go to the accounts that are more challenging, the accounts we may have some difficulties with today . . . For me it’s about making sure we understand what impacts their business and what’s important to their business and make sure we act upon that and execute on that.”
Some 80 per cent of McData’s business went through the channel, he said, much of it sold as solutions. Jones said he wants to leverage that knowledge to expand HP’s solutions set.
At Quantum he said he helped shift the company from direct to channel sales largely by gaining the trust of VARs.
“I’m a guy who’s out in the field 90 per cent of the time,” he said. “I’m not a guy who will lead from a corner office.” He vowed to be out meeting with customers and partners.
“It’s not rocket science,” he said. It’s pretty simple communication and getting trust and confidence in your channel partnerships.”
“I’m a great believer in only the paranoid survive,” he added.
Jones’ boss, Mike Larson, senior vice-president and general manager of HP’s personal systems group in the Americas, said going outside the company for the post was a bit of a change, one that new CEO Mark Hurd has encouraged.
What impressed management, Larson said, is that Jones “has a track record of impressive leadership, breadth of global and IT industry experience, and I think that will be a great asset to our channel organization and our valued channel partners.”
Jones “is a consummate sales leader. I think his experience is in the value and services space.” HP’s growth in that area “has not been the same level as in the volume business,” Larson added, “and I think he’s going to really help us.”
Still, he added that it “signals no big change in our channel strategy.” On the other hand, he said the short list of candidates were up through “an intensive interviewing process.”
Interestingly, when was asked what percentage of direct to channel sales he wants to see at HP, Jones deferred to Larson for a reply.
“The honest answer is whatever ratio delivers us the greatest profitable growth,” said Larson.
Comment: cdnedit@itbusiness.ca