IBM's Influencer Program Still Kicking

"We are still strongly focused on consultants and integrators," said Anne Smith, vice president of consultants and integrators, IBM global business partners. Because of the PwC acquisition, there's been a lot of questioning 'Is this still the case?' Yes, it is."

The consultants and integrators program was launched some three years ago, in part to attract the new breed of e-business integrators into the IBM technology fold. She said the program has grown to include between 1,000 and 1,200 solution providers worldwide.

The program varies from the traditional IBM business partner contract in that it accommodates solution providers who may influence the sale of products as well as those who actually handled the transaction and book product sales as top-line revenue.

"The business plan is part of our relationship and we do forecasting together," Smith said. "If the partner wants to keep the top-line revenue and formally resell IBM products, we can do that," she said. "On the other hand, if they are more interested in a pure influencer model, that's fine as well."

Smith said the crux of IBM's relationship with consultants and integrators are the co-marketing efforts that result in new business for both parties.

"Our greatest relationships are with our [IBM software reps who work with us to influence deals," said Todd Underwood, business development manager at iRise, an e-business consulting and integration company based in El Segundo, Calif. "[The software rep knows he can win the deal faster if he uses iRise in the sale process," he said.

But Underwood said one problem with influencing product sales for companies such as IBM is getting compensated for this effort. "It's not simple, and it's not clean," he said. "It's tough to get credit [for influencing a product sale. That's the problem with an influencer model; it's easy to get lost in the mix."

Underwood said IBM sought out the company two years ago to be part of its consultants and integrators group. The company builds custom Web-based applications for Fortune 1000 companies.

Underwood said even though iRise doesn't have a traditional product-reselling model, it prefers to transact the IBM WebSphere sale rather than simply get credit for influencing it. What's more, rather than basing its success on being compensated for product sales, iRise wants to get the implementation services on deals that it wins in conjunction with IBM.

Smith said IBM wants to maintain the flexibility within the consultants and integrators programs to work with companies such as iRise.

Smith said e-business solutions still represent 47 percent of the total IT market. In fact, even in a declining market, e-business solution spending has grown 15 percent over the past two years, she said.

"We believe that roughly half the time in e-business solutions, consultants and integrators are the source of the opportunity," Smith said.

Consultants and integrators are the ones who make the early engagements with the client during the needs-assessment phase of a project and are therefore crucial in influencing technology-buying decisions, she said. Not only are consultants and integrators finding new opportunities, but they are also creating them through technology recommendations.

"What's clear to us is that e-business solution spending is the faster-growing opportunity and consultants and integrators represent a crucial force in identifying opportunities and driving technology decisions," she said.