Storage Centric

Recognized as one of the world's largest storage-centric distributors, Bell Micro offers expert guidance in a range of technologies--which includes storage products of various types, such as desktop, high-end computer and storage subsystems, Fibre Channel connectivity products, RAID, NAS and SAN storage systems, and back-up products. So if a solution provider is looking to build a storage practice--or expand an existing one--Bell Micro has the expertise to make it happen.

"We have outside salespeople whose sole job is to start up new resellers in specific programs to help them add a new [vendor] product line into their already existing storage practice," Rossey says.

In fact, Bell Micro has a program in place called Steps that targets solution providers who are trying to add a new product line to their existing storage business. Steps begins with a drawn-up business plan that includes the number of sales and technical employees needed in order to be certified in a particular vendor's product line. Bell Micro's sales force trains the reseller's sales force and works with the marketing and management teams to help create demand in a local marketplace.

"We bring together the relationship between the supplier and the end user and the reseller," Rossey explains. "This gives the reseller the leverage they need. "It's a lot easier to sell something when you have the support of the supplier."

Bell Micro's salespeople accompany solution providers on joint sales calls. It has a solution center, based in Minnesota, staffed with a cadre of solution architects that specialize in various storage applications. "And so, those people are available to the VAR in order to help them design and implement solutions," Rossey says.

And, as part of the Steps process, and a benefit of working with the Solutions Center, Bell Micro has developed a number of predesigned SOWs, which stands for "Scope of Work." In simple terms, SOWs helps define the whole process a reseller needs to go through when implementing a particular storage solution. For example, it lays out the exact steps a reseller needs to follow when a customer wants to do storage consolidation through a SAN installation.

"We have done it so many times," Rossey says. "So now we have a standard written process that explains to the reseller how to do it. It's a full definition of the scope of work involved. All the things that are needed to make the solution work are defined in the SOW document."

Brad Call, a solution architect and product manager for SAN solutions at Centinel, last quarter was trained in the Steps program. EMC and Cisco Systems are two of the solution provider's primary vendors. Already certified as a reseller for the vendors, the company needed some kind of incentive program to help boost its sales numbers.

"The Steps program gave us the tools and incentives to increase our EMC and Cisco sales," Call explains. "It gave us additional tools and additional money as well as access to technical training we normally would have had to pay for. Bell Micro made it very easy."