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Stephen DiFranco, Hewlett-Packard’s channel chief, recently spoke with CRN’s Scott Campbell about progress with HP’s channel programs, cloud initiatives and some news on the Palm/mobile front. The following are excerpts from the conversation:
What progress has been made in some of the areas HP committed to improve at the Americas Partner Conference this spring?
There were a couple of things we committed to at APC. First, we would try to get some channel simplification. Since APC, we have a new leader for Americas operations in Debra LeBlanc. She has selected a new U.S. channels operations leader, John Lundgren. His job is to focus on solving many issues that channel partners wanted fixed.
The first thing is deal registration. This is really critical. We got up on stage and committed to addressing that and we have identified the organizational and people changes necessary to make that happen.
At the core of it, HP tried to accommodate so many different channel partner issues that we created a large, complex channel operational issue. The goal is to simplify that and reduce the number of programs so it’s not as confusing which programs you should use. At the end of the day, fewer is probably better.
The other thing is we promised is to get the leaders of IPG, PSG, ESSN, the software group’s channel, the networking group’s channel and the services channel all working together as one channel team to address things in an synchronized way.
The thing thing we said is we would keep executive access. I’m pleased to say [CEO] Mark Hurd is continuing his meetings with channel partners through the fall.
Is it possible CRN could get invited to one of those meetings?
No. One thing that makes that process work is that it’s truly for channel partners to have unfettered access to Mark. They can ask serious questions about running their businesses. In many cases, HP is their largest hardware vendor, a significant part of their business. They need an opportunity to get to the CEO in an unfettered model. I think that’s critical.
One of the things that we’ve talked about is that we’re putting together a portfolio of products on the x86 infrastructure, the parts that we use to build our PCs and servers and storage and networking products. Our partners can have the ability to sell and service across that portfolio and expand into new businesses. If they’re selling PCs they can expand into security or storage, as HP becomes a company that offers a broad enough line that resellers look at as their their principal franchise, they need access to that company’s principal executive.
At Synnex’s Varnex show earlier this year, you noted that when you joined HP there were many different answer and opinions on the channel internally. How much has the channel’s message been unified across the company?
Getting a new ops team under Debra LebBlanc has been critical. You’re not going to solve the eight ways to run 20 different programs problem without having an operations team that focuses on programs that are truly effective and valuable. There are no fewer than 16 different registration programs available to resellers today. Multiply that by the number of business lines and it’s an unnecessarily complex way to do registrations.
Having a team focused on finding the few that matter is a step in the right direction. We’re reaching out to peers like Frank Rauch and others that have sales responsibility in the channel to align programs and communications to channel partners, simple little things make sure our inside sales organizations address channel in a similar way.
Next: Deal Registration Improvements On The Way
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