Avnet Launches Portal To Streamline Service Renewal Process

Avnet introduced a portal Tuesday that provides channel partners with a multivendor view of the service contract status for their customers' hardware and software purchases.

The Phoenix-based distributor said uRenew will simplify the service contract renewal process for solution providers, enabling them to close a greater percentage of renewals and freeing up more time and money for other opportunities.

"This is a big Avnet endeavor into enhancing our customer knowledge and helping our partners grow," Larry Fulop, Avnet's vice president and general manager of supplier services, told CRN. "The excitement has been unbelievable from our partner community."

[RELATED: Avnet Offers Partners A Hand With Service Renewals]

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Every Avnet partner will have access to uRenew at no additional cost, Fulop said. Prior to uRenew, each of Avnet's vendor groups manually sent separate reminders out to channel partners letting them know that a client renewal was coming up.

URenew builds upon Maintenance ServicesNow, a program launched in January where Avnet's supplier services team uses its telemarketing capabilities to help channel partners land maintenance service renewals. Unlike uRenew, Maintenance ServicesNow only has been marketed to a subset of Avnet's partner community, with the distributor collecting a percentage of the business generated as a service fee, Fulop said.

Prior to the rollout of Maintenance ServicesNow and uRenew, Avnet partners closed on just 62 percent of their renewal opportunities because some solution providers felt it wasn't worth the effort to pursue small maintenance deals. But with Avnet's help, channel partners should be able to easily increase their closure rates and grow their annuity base.

Though Fulop said he isn't familiar with what other distributors offer around service renewal portals, he expects uRenew's cross-vendor capabilities -- where the portal looks and feels the same no matter which supplier solution providers are buying from -- to set it apart from the pack. He said uRenew is one of the few tools on the market that can help partners grow their revenue base.

After viewing the contract statuses in uRenew, partners will, in the near term, still need to contact each of Avnet's vendor teams separately to place renewal orders, Fulop said. The distributor hopes to eventually make it easier for partners to consolidate contracts from multiple vendors and move to a model where partners can buy multiple brands from the same Avnet contact.

Although all products bought through Avnet are viewable in uRenew, the only vendors feeding current service contract statuses to the portal are Cisco, Hewlett-Packard, IBM and Oracle, Fulop said. Feeds from Brocade and Riverbed will be integrated by May 1, and additional vendor feeds will be added as they become available, Fulop said.

Avnet has offered a service contract portal to its European customers for two years, and the distributor made some changes and enhancements to the program to better fit its North American partner base. Avnet intends to launch uRenew in Latin America, the Caribbean and Asia within the next two years, Fulop said.

URenew also provides solution provider executives with better access to data around service contracts, such as how many renewal deals have been closed, how much renewal revenue can still be captured and how well individual sales reps are performing. With a subscription, executives can have that information sent directly to their inboxes each week without having to enter the uRenew portal.

Solution providers working with multiple vendors and with business units focused around annuity or renewal efforts will benefit most from uRenew, Fulop said.

Feedback from a 60-day partner trial of uRenew was very favorable, Fulop said, with partners requesting more capability around consolidated contracts and adding the functionality to search the database by serial number. Most partner feedback has been incorporated in time for the formal rollout, he said.

CMA Technology Solutions of Baton Rouge, La., tested uRenew's capabilities around IBM during the pilot and came away generally impressed, according to maintenance renewal manager Angie Welch.

"The pilot went as expected," Welch said. "Once you get a taste of it, you want more."

CMA Technology works with more than 30 vendors, Welch said, and is pleased that uRenew offers easy access to customer support information with a couple of clicks or by using the search function. URenew should streamline CMA Technology's research process and ensure the Avnet partner doesn't overlook any renewal opportunities, she said.

"It can be quite exhausting to make sure you do thorough research and don't miss anything," Welch said.

Once uRenew is able to streamline how CMA Technology functions, Welch expects the VAR to focus on providing contract renewal quotes further ahead of the contract expiration and become more proactive in searching for other revenue-generating opportunities. "The maintenance renewal business is perpetual," Welch said. "It never stops."

PUBLISHED MARCH 31, 2015