Tech Data Launches New HP Division, Networking Solutions Group
The HP Solutions Division and the Networking Solutions Group were developed to help VARs create the right solutions for customers and not have to make multiple phone calls, executives said.
"The biggest impact for resellers out of the gate is we're driving efficiencies and should be easier to transact business with," said John O'Shea, vice president of the new HP Solutions Division. "You won't have to talk to one person for printers, one for servers, one for desktops. We're working on the enablement of the whole team around HP."
The decision to form an HP division grew out of the vendor's strategy to encourage VARs to sell more of HP's portfolio and rewarding partners for that loyalty. HP represents about 28 percent of Tech Data's global sales, according to the distributor.
"HP is clearly going to market selling the entire HP portfolio. In the past, Tech Data was structured such that you would talk to a different person for [HP's] Personal Systems Group, Image and Printing Group and even the networking and server and storage piece," O'Shea said. "The direction from HP that we're following is to make it easier to transact business with us. Instead of multiple executives, one division now has ownership of entire HP with the stated objective of increasing the portfolio across the board,"
Meanwhile, the Networking Solutions Group is designed to make it easier for VARs to leverage Tech Data's sales, marketing and tech support processes, according to Tech Data. Networking Solutions becomes the fifth solutions group underneath Tech Data's Advanced Infrastructure Solutions (AIS) division, joining groups around Cisco Systems, IBM, storage and software.
Networking Solutions is broader than Cisco in that it includes surveillance, access control and other types of networking solutions that are comprised of multiple vendors, said Chuck Bartlett, vice president and general manager of Advanced Infrastructure Solutions at Tech Data.
"With the convergence of networking infrastructure within the data center and from an enterprise business standpoint, it made a lot of sense to bring networking partners into the [Advanced Infrastructure Solutions] division and form Networking Solutions," Bartlett said. "We've been providing surveillance and data center solutions for a long time. Now we can go to partners and say there's a certain amount of security and control [that they can add]. This is a way for partners to provide more infrastructure to broaden their solutions and generate income and profit."