VARs identified several concerns surrounding vendor relationships, corporate marketing activity and hardware product sales in a new survey of Canadian IT resellers. In the report from Evans Research Corp, resellers said vendors play a critical role in providing marketing materials, product training and certification and lead generation.
“”Resellers want support from vendors,”” said Michelle Warren, who authored the 99-page report. “”We lost that for a while.””
Asked how vendors should assist their businesses, 18 per cent said they want companies to play a leading role in providing marketing materials for hardware and software products in 2004 and 2005.
The second highest area of help needed was in product training and certification at 13 per cent, followed by more lead generation at 11 per cent and increased end-user advertising at 11 per cent.
Tight budgets
Warren noted that resellers have tight marketing budgets and rely on vendors to disseminate product and marketing information to customers.
Asked to rank the importance of their sales activities, 13 per cent of resellers valued their marketing materials highest. Equally placed below that were funding/market development funds/co-op funds, product training and certification, vendor Web site and sales collaboration. At the bottom were lead management, new market development and sales tools.
“”You often hear that resellers don’t have marketing funds or don’t choose to spend marketing dollars,”” said Warren. She added there are two types of sales collaboration situations between a vendor and a reseller.
“”With sales collaboration you have a vendor calling up a client qualifying a lead and perhaps passing it onto a reseller. Or you have a reseller and vendor. You’re showing a unified force.””
Out of the 175 survey participants, 16 new resellers or approximately 10 per cent were emerging on the market – a sign the market’s rebounding, said Warren.
Eleven per cent of respondents said their business came from existing accounts while 19 had no new accounts.
Warren said this isn’t a concern for smaller resellers, who distribute to the same client base but would be one for large firms.
Win-backs popular
The most popular source for increasing sales opportunities was competitive win-back initiatives.
Twenty-six per cent of respondents said that 10 per cent of new business was generated from competitive winback initiatives.
In hardware product sales section, resellers ranked Dell as their number two preferred hardware partner – three points behind HP. Eighteen per cent of respondents said HP is their preferred hardware product supplier while 15 per cent said the same for Dell.
Warren cited reseller concerns over servicing of Dell’s equipment and that Dell products are readily available on the grey market to resellers through access to inventory. Still, when asked who their customers’ favourite hardware vendors are Dell and HP tied at the top with 20 per cent each.
“Resellers think that Dell is their top two hardware provider,”” said Warren. “”But end-users prefer Dell PCs and resellers know that.”
