How Do Vendors Drive You Nuts?

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Every relationship takes work, especially when it's a business relationship. Even the best partnerships are far from perfect. So how vendors drive their partners up the wall?

"I'd like for them to not steal our business," said Greg Wright, president of NSync Services. "We take them opportunities, and the next thing we know the big company has gone in and taken the business away from us."

Other partners want a little more TLC, rather than just getting face-to-face time when it seems convenient for vendors.

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"It's really lack of communication," said Fusiontek principal Brian Miller. "Consistent communication. Communication that isn't just, 'Hey, when I see you at some event I carved out my time to come see,' but week in and week out."

Partners also want vendors to be up with the times in the channel, to understand exactly how companies are transforming.

"A lot of vendors hire people who think we're selling boxes and doing stuff we did in the '90s, and I think the age of tactical IT is over, and we're entering the age of strategic IT,’ said Eric Rockwell, president and CIO of CentrexIT. "Vendors have to understand not just what VARs are doing, but what managed service providers like us are doing."

Sometimes, vendors make it too hard just to become a partner.

"They set high barriers to partner with them," said Robert Wardlow, president of Cortland Computer Services.

PUBLISHED SEPT. 16, 2014