6 Six Making Their Mark

Prior to joining the systems vendor in June 2004, Bova, Gateway’s senior director of indirect sales and programs, professional sales, merged 14 channel programs--the result of multiple acquisitions--into one for hosting vendor Interland. That feat helped prepare Bova for her current position, where her first order of business was to restore the channel efforts of the historically direct-sales PC maker.

Bova saw “untapped opportunity” for the channel when she arrived. “When I looked across the landscape to see where I could go, I thought, ‘This is about as clean a slate as I can get,’ ” she said.

Eight months later, Bova relaunched the ProNet program with 20 new features to help woo partners. She admits it will take some convincing to bring resellers around to the idea that Gateway, Poway, Calif., is committed to working with them. In fact, she said her goal for 2005 is to ensure that the channel sees Gateway as a viable vendor partner in the PC space. “Now much of what I hear is, ‘Gateway is a direct company; I didn’t know you had a reseller program,’ ” Bova said. “The win for 2005 would be that the perception would change around Gateway’s willingness to accept the channel.”
--Elizabeth Montalbano

SCOTT DUNSIRE, LEXMARK
Scott Dunsire, vice president of U.S. business channels at Lexmark International, knows what it takes to make partners happy.

With more than 19 years of experience in one channel position or another, he actually began his career working for a solution provider in 1986.

“Scott grew up in the channel--he’s always been a channel guy,” said John Marks, CEO of JDM Infrastructure, a Rosemont, Ill., systems integrator.

Indeed, Dunsire has used his channel history to help the Lexington, Ky.-based printer and multifunction device vendor tailor products and programs to the VAR community. Over the past year, Dunsire has expanded Lexmark’s traditional partner base with initiatives that support solution providers capable of building SMB document workflow and printing solutions--meeting with 35 to 40 solution providers a month to keep the programs evolving.

Lexmark’s Certified Solution Program, officially launched in January 2004, helps train and certify boutique and regional solution providers so they can provide document management and workflow solutions, thus giving traditional copier companies a run for their money, Dunsire said.

Finding more SMB opportunities for Lexmark and its partners is what will drive Dunsire’s strategy this year.

“Traditionally, it’s been an important space for us, but we know that there is opportunity for us to do much better,” Dunsire said.
--Elizabeth Montalbano

MARK HILL, ACER AMERICA
If you’re wondering what kind of commitment Acer America has made to the channel, consider that its U.S. channel chief, Mark Hill, answers directly to the vendor’s U.S. president.

As vice president of U.S. sales--and Hill emphasizes all sales, not just channel sales--he works on strategy with Acer America President Rudi Schmidleithner and Maarten De Haas, who heads marketing. “We don’t answer to anyone else,” Hill said. “We don’t have to fight retail people or direct-sales people. We have no direct sales. And I run all U.S. sales.”

Acer has about 7,200 solution providers in the United States and expects to double that figure by year-end, Hill said. And that’s after a threefold increase from 2003. He attributes that surge to his policy of keeping things simple. For instance, the San Jose, Calif.-based company has eliminated difficult-to-administer programs and makes sure all partners, regardless of size, can find the same prices for Acer products, Hill said.

In fact, he said, those policies, which make it possible for solution providers to actually make money reselling hardware, may be contributing to a resurgence in the channel’s notebook PC business--a phenomenon backed up by CRN’s own monthly polling data. “In talking to Ingram Micro and Tech Data, we believe that many VARs, who got out of selling notebooks, are getting back in because they see the opportunities,” Hill said.
--Joseph F. Kovar

TAYLOR MACDONALD, BEST SOFTWARE (MIDMARKET DIVISION)
As executive vice president of channel and sales operations for the CRM and financial applications company’s midmarket unit, Irvine, Calif., Taylor Macdonald believes the best way he can support channel partners is by helping them develop better sales skills. And there perhaps is no better example of his commitment to that tenet than Best Software’s program last year to invest $1 million in funding 100 new sales positions at partners. It was no empty promise: So far, 90-plus of those positions have been filled. Within Best Software itself, there are roughly 30 employees dedicated to channel field-sales support, marketing, recruiting and development.

Macdonald is also working hard to help Best Software’s partners become better-run businesses and has been running an ongoing campaign to help owners evaluate their operations.

“If you just assume your partners can find the road to financial profitability, you might as well lose your partners every year,” he said.

“Our partners understand that we live and die by the ‘If you don’t succeed, we won’t succeed’ mantra,” Macdonald added.

Stan Kania, president and owner of Software Link, an Atlanta-based Best Software partner with about $2 million in annual sales, has benefited from the salesperson-hiring program. He said Best Software’s team shows across-the-board support for its channel. But Macdonald takes it one step further, offering valuable business advice when he pays his visits to partners.

Kania especially appreciates that insight, given Macdonald’s experience in the trenches. Before he was hired by Best Software in 1998, Macdonald managed the company’s top solution provider partner for six years running.

“[Macdonald’s] mind is always going. He’s asking, ‘What can we do different? What can we do better?’ ” Kania said.
--Heather Clancy

GARY QUINN, COMPUTER ASSOCIATES
Gary Quinn, executive vice president of partner advocacy at Computer Associates International, has carried the torch of CA’s channel aspirations during some of the darkest times in the software vendor’s history.

As the Islandia, N.Y., company endured an accounting scandal, a corporate restructuring and the transfer of leadership to a new CEO, Quinn worked behind the scenes to organize CA’s Enterprise Solution Partner (ESP) program, drive its first customer/partner experience initiative and integrate a field partner advocacy organization smack dab within the workings of CA’s direct-sales team. With little fanfare, he quietly added channel field representatives and negotiated bold distribution changes earlier this year.

The tectonic shift in CA’s distribution model--a cornerstone of the ESP program--demonstrates that Quinn doesn’t shy away from ushering in major change.

But flexibility is also a trademark of Quinn’s leadership, reflected by his decision to make last-minute adjustments to ESP program deadlines that gave smaller VARs grace periods that likely spared the loss of dozens of customer accounts.

“Partners are in business to make money just like we are,” Quinn said. “A complex message to a partner usually doesn’t [translate] into, ‘How do we make money together?’ And I find that to be true even with our own people. If you have a complex compensation plan, it takes a few weeks for the sales guy to figure out how to make money. Likewise, the channel shouldn’t see the complexity of CA. They just need to see how to make money with us.”
--Dan Neel

DAVE ROBERTS, MCAFEE
At the beginning of his career with defense contractor General Dynamics, Dave Roberts used to walk factory lines to get to know his employees personally.

Today, as senior vice president of North American channels at security vendor McAfee, he has brought the same hands-on attitude to managing the vendor’s indirect-sales efforts. Roberts e-mails partners every day and meets with 30 of them every month. Occasionally, he’ll even host a partner or two for a round of golf.
“I like to make everyone feel important,” he said. “All of our channel partners are.”

When Roberts started at McAfee in July 2004, there were fewer than 20 employees dedicated to the channel. Today, the vendor boasts more than 100 and channel-related budgets have increased by nearly 400 percent, he said.

After years of direct sales, McAfee’s goal for the future is to drive all sales through its new SecurityAlliance partner program by 2006. Central to this strategy is the vendor’s partner relationship management infrastructure, which provides product collateral and online sales and technical training to solution providers. The company also has introduced efforts to improve partner profitability and delivers additional rebates for deals registered at the beginning of the sales cycle.

So far, solution providers are impressed with the progress Roberts has made during his short tenure at McAfee from his previous post as head of enterprise sales and services at software application vendor Corel.“McAfee has always had channel conflict between their direct-sales force and their channel partners,” said Steven Palange, president of TLIC Worldwide, a security solution provider in Wakefield, R.I. “[Roberts] has taken major steps to show the reseller community [McAfee] is serious and dedicated to channel partners.”
--Matt Villano