GovernmentVAR Awards: Conquering Goliath

Of course, the success of any solution provider depends largely on which vendors it chooses as partners. It's not just a company's technology that determines its worth as a team member. VARs also consider the quality of a vendor's public-sector program and the executive team that leads it.

D-Link, winner of the Public Sector Partner Program of the Year, drives and supports the 40 percent of its business that goes to government and education by providing VARs with special pricing programs, access to state contracts, market reps and 24x7 support.

GovernmentVAR also presented Robert Samson, former general manager of IBM's global public sector and now at the vendor's Systems Group, with a Lifetime Achievement Award.

At Cisco, which boasts more than $1 billion in revenue from the federal space alone, GovernmentVAR named operations director of federal channels Dawn Duross the Government Channel Executive of the Year.

Part of what earned Duross the title was channel chatter. Solution providers consistently name her as someone who strives to make herself and her team accessible and visible. Duross also drove the addition of new marketing resources and tools, and a renewed focus on the federal space, complete with a beefed-up channel organization, as well as incentives and training programs that cater specifically to the needs of federal partners. Through Cisco's finance division, loans and training programs, Duross offers assistance to small businesses that face distinctive challenges in serving public-sector customers. With so many federal policies driving work to that sector, there's a huge potential for return for small businesses that show their worth, Duross says.

"I like the concept of these challenged companies going out, finding business opportunities and building a reputation that makes them an asset," she says, adding that Cisco is currently working with Comstor to offer an educational series for SMBs.

Regarding Cisco's overall federal-market strategy, Duross drove the investment in relationships with integrators and service providers, recognizing that customers were transitioning away from products alone. "In the federal government, there's a lot more than just the reseller," she says. "There are a lot of moving parts."