CDW Expands VAR Recruitment

Norm Lillis, CDW&s vice president of sales, said the company has had “meaningful conversations with [more than] 100” solution providers interested in joining the program.

“This is absolutely strategic to us; we&ve set high expectations,” he said. The agent plan, first unveiled last September, calls for solution providers to shift all of their product business to CDW. The Vernon Hills, Ill.-based company then pays the solution provider an agent fee on product sales.

In addition, SolutionEdge members become authorized CDW service providers who can offer installation and support services to existing CDW accounts.

Lillis said CDW traditionally targets VARs with at least $2 million to $4 million in revenue, of which 20 percent to 30 percent come from services. That target is now expanding to include higher end VARs that may not want to turn over their entire product business to CDW, he said.

As an example, he cited IBM Business Partners that carry pSeries and iSeries—products CDW is not authorized to sell.

“These [partners] typically play at the high end,” Lillis said. “Where they don&t play is typically in the Wintel and peripherals space, which is where we do. There is opportunity for different fulfillment here.”

One IBM Business Partner, who has been contacted by CDW but requested anonymity, said, “They showed us a grid on how we could split the profits, but it didn&t make sense to us because we would be making less on product sales.”

Separately, CDW Government (CDW-G), the company&s subsidiary that sells products to the federal government, last week said it has signed six new companies to its Small Business Partner Consortium and exercised the one-year contract options of nine existing consortium members.

The 15 federal consortium members can issue purchase orders to CDW-G to fulfill the federal contact requirements, similar to how SolutionEdge operates in the commercial space.