The Atkins Plan: 'Keep Momentum'

CRN editors Michael Vizard, Steven Burke and Craig Zarley last week spoke with Donn Atkins, the newly appointed general manager of IBM Global Business Partners, about his plans for IBM's channel, including his goal to simplify doing business with IBM.

CRN: What do you hope to accomplish during your first 100 days on the job?

ATKINS: I just want to keep the momentum going. I think the work the team has done [and] the direction the team has established is the right direction. It's pretty clear what we have to do. We have to simplify our business--make it easier to do business with IBM, look for ways to address the issues the partners are facing. The first 100 days I want to go to partners and people who know partners and ask if we are on the right agenda. This is not about a new agenda. This is about executing the play that we called. It's about continuing to deliver the PartnerWorld vision.

I think we have some tremendous momentum going right now. I think we have some opportunity to build upon success and the little bit of uncertainty in the marketplace with some competitors to leverage our capabilities against what customers need.

CRN: Why do all the brands at IBM seem to be fully embracing the channel?

ATKINS: Business reality. This is about looking at your market, determining your best route to market, and [then] plumbing the thing and putting a management system around it. Part of it has to do with the reality of where the market opportunity is. SMB is where the biggest growth is. We're [fully] penetrated in the large accounts. The best way to get to SMB is through some route-to-market partner structure. Lots more small transactions. You have to find the most efficient, effective way to do it. I sit with everyone in the product divisions and everyone has come to the same conclusion.

There is a framework in place with PartnerWorld. What I'll be doing is bringing the whole company together under it in a far more cohesive, integrated way.

CRN: Do you intend to recruit more Business Partners?

ATKINS: As far as opportunities to broaden our base, I think there are a lot there. We see an opportunity to talk to potential partners who do not yet carry IBM's product lines and to talk to people who have customers and opportunities to help us reach into places where we are not. We don't have market position that suggests we are deeply penetrated and we're going to have a lot of channel overlap. If we can present a value proposition to partners [of] some of our competitors, and have them open doors to a different customer set, I think that's a tremendous opportunity. And it doesn't create conflict with our existing customer base.

CRN: How many guys can you add?

ATKINS: I don't know. We have a target right now to go after a manageable number of competitive partners. We are in the process of doing that. We have already gotten some success. Give us a little time. I want to get that done before I tell you who they are.

CRN: What type of partners?

ATKINS: We have several [possible] areas. We have some very competitive technology right now. We have some server lines that are very competitive in the Unix and Linux space that I think provide a great alternative from price and performance and from a technology road-map perspective. What we have is a committed technology plan that has not changed. We have a solutions strategy. Inside the Software Group, for example, we identified 61 solution segments that were finite inside of a major industry. Inside that space we know there are partners and solution providers that have capabilities that are complementary to our efforts.

They are not always on IBM technology. We will make investments in attracting, porting, enabling and supporting those partners. And we will add more partners that might have a particular geographic presence. We are not trying to overdistribute. We are not trying to create capacity that's going to create tons of conflict.

CRN: Do you have the support of IBM management for your channel strategy?

ATKINS: [IBM Chairman and CEO] Sam Palmisano is one of our best teammates. Our management system has three dimensions: It has geographic dimension. It has brand dimensions. And it has customer-set dimensions. I don't care what side or shape you are looking into, there is a question on how you are using partners. When you are talking to Sam as a brand leader, as I did for the last two years, he's talking about how your partner strategy is working. When he's talking to one of our country or regional teams, he's asking, 'How's your partner strategy going?' When he's talking to our banking or communications sector leader, he's asking, 'How's your partner strategy going?'