Former Employees, Partners Say ISS Channel Issues Persist

In a CRN story last month, ISS executives said the company made several changes to increase its channel business, including adding personnel to the operations unit that works on channel programs.

But former ISS employees, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the company reduced the number of employees who support the channel. There had been 10 territory managers who supported channel partners, but that number was cut in half this summer, the sources said.

At the same time, Atlanta-based ISS has increased its direct-sales representatives by 15, sources said. "They don't get the channel model," one former employee said.

In an e-mail response, Larry Costanza, senior vice president, America's operations at ISS, said, "The changes being made to our channel strategy are incremental, and to date there has been a small increase in personnel thus far."

Some activities might have caused some confusion in actual personnel numbers, he said. The company moved channel support staff in the field under district managers, which may have led to the wrong assumption that more direct salespeople were added, he said.

"In two cases there was overlap from existing staff, and those positions were redeployed into the alliance and corporate channel programs groups which support channel sales as well," Costanza added.

Lou Carli, senior vice president of sales and marketing at Cadre, a Cincinnati-based security solution provider and top ISS partner, said ISS field support is "very thin right now."

ISS had some good "channel-centric" executives--including former channel chief Steve Laubenstein--but they recently left, which indicates a problem, Carli said.

Solution providers have long complained about ISS taking deals direct. While ISS executives said they're working to be more channel-friendly, channel partners' complaints about the company's direct tactics persist.

"They do have some channel issues. It does seem like we fight battles, that we compete against them sometimes," Carli said. "It's been a frustrating relationship because they're the market leader and have great technology. If they could implement a sound channel program, they would easily be heads above all the other technologies."

One thing ISS could do to improve its channel program is to incent direct-sales representatives to take deals through the channel, he said. He took issue with a comment by Costanza, who said last month that the company's direct-sales representatives are paid the same if the deal is fulfilled directly or via a channel partner.

"That's not a channel-friendly model," Carli said. "You've got to incent direct reps to work with the channel, which means you pay them more to work with the channel or less to go direct."

Costanza responded in an e-mail that the ISS direct-sales staff does have incentive to take deals through the channel. "Direct-sales staff get paid when a deal is fulfilled via a channel partner," he said.