IBM Beefs Up Web Site To Help Solution Providers

IBM

The initiatives, unveiled at the company's annual PartnerWorld conference, held here this week, include improved commissions and longer payback periods for solution providers' clients that order products via the Web, along with new ways to turn Web inquiries into VAR leads.

Leveraging the ibm.com Web site to help solution providers is becoming more important to IBM as surveys show that technology-savvy decision makers, who are most likely to order commodity products online, control two-thirds of spending, said David Bradley, vice president of marketing and strategy at IBM. And half of those online buyers are likely to be dependent on solution providers, he said.

Among new initiatives are the Medium Business Center, a portal for the SMB space, which went live this week, said Patrick O'Donnell, vice president for IBM's public Internet and SMB sales.

The Medium Business Center offers end users information on potential solutions, industry trends and IBM product trends, as well as special offers and case studies on solutions by IBM VARs, said O'Donnell.

On the home page is a Call Center button which, when pressed, will alert an IBM specialist to call the user to answer questions. The specialist will then qualify the user as a potential lead for solution providers. "Our intention is to turn these into qualified leads for our business partners," O'Donnell said.

Business partners can leverage the Medium Business Center by signing up for the PartnerWorld Lead Management program, now being formed, and then making their solutions a part of a Global Solutions Directory accessible to clients, O'Donnell said.

IBM this week also enhanced its Affiliate Marketing program. The program, which was launched at last year's PartnerWorld conference, gave solution providers access to creative assets such as banner links, storefronts, search boxes and other items that could be made part of their Web site and which make it easy for customers to order online, said O'Donnell.

The new program now offers solution providers commissions averaging 3 percent to 4 percent on customer orders placed online, compared with the 1 percent to 2 percent offered last year, O'Donnell said.

In addition, sales placed by customers that ordered on-line last year resulted in commissions only one time, with subsequent sales not being credited as coming from the solution provider. Now when a customer places an order online, a persistent, 90-day cookie is used to make sure credit for subsequent orders goes to the VAR. "Now if a customer comes back to ibm.com within 90 days, we know they are buying from you," said O'Donnell.

The value proposition for the Affiliate Marketing program is that solution providers have a fulfillment alternative for low-margin products, one that does not require stocking or shipping of inventory, O'Donnell said. Solution providers can pick and choose which products and links to put on their Web site and can change them as needed, he said.

IBM is building a new database of information aimed at helping business partners and clients to get information online about partners, said Rich Vazzana, vice president of electronic support and service. The database, based on a new architecture being developed, will allow searches that give specific answers instead of a number of search results which must be further investigated, Vazzana said. It is expected to go online in July.

IBM is also developing a new version of Partnerline, which allows solution providers to talk to a live solution specialist for help. While the current version of Partnerline often results in solution providers being passed from operator to operator, the new version is expected to give Partnerline personnel the information to answer questions immediately, with a very stringent process for passing information requests to other operators, said Vazzana.

IBM is also encouraging business partners to work with IBM personnel to write Redbooks on their solutions and have those Redbooks published online. Currently, about 13 percent of the residents on IBM's International Technical Support Organization (ITSO), which is responsible for the Redbook program, are solution providers, said Vazzana. Such solution providers can claim to be experts in their field, and are often given first access to new technologies related to their solutions, he said. About 5.9 million Redbooks were downloaded in 2001, he said.

"You should think of using ITSO to improve your skills," Vazzana said. "Become an established author."

Many of the new online tools IBM is introducing should help automate the information and ordering process, said John Trygstad, sales representative at North American Systems International, an Egan, Minn.-based solution provider.

Trygstad, who just recently left a 20-plus-year career as a CIO to join the solution provider, is planning to serve as an information aggregator for his potential clients, and said he can use much of the information from ibm.com, including product and bug announcements and IBM's Redbooks, to help customers.

"Customers sometimes get so mad because they don't know about these things soon enough to affect their buying decisions," he said.