Channel Management: A Challenging Road

In April alone, Cisco Systems, Computer Associates and Sun Microsystems held their partner conferences (all in Orlando, Fla.), and we could write volumes about the conversations we had with the partners of those companies.

In the high-flying '90s, these events took on the feel of frat parties. This year's events, however, have taken on a deadly serious tone. Cisco CEO John Chambers described it as back to the basics of profit, cash flow and proving productivity gains. Solution providers, who are flying to these events on their own dimes, are out to mingle with other partners, square off with vendor executives and make some serious decisions about their businesses' futures. The part of the trip that used to include fun has been placed much further down on their Palms' to-do lists.

The structure of the companies' partner programs is intriguing. Microsoft, whose partner event is in July, has a channel organization that seems out of step with its contemporaries. It's the only major tech vendor that does not have one individual responsible for its channel efforts. The company has decided to split those duties along customer lines between Rosa Garcia and Charles Stevens. Most other companies have opted for one executive who calls the shots and who can wage war, politick or whatever else needs to be done.

Channel management remains an odd duck inside many large organizations, often proving strangely elusive to the CEO. It's kind of like the special-teams unit in football. Coaches know it consists of a unique and strange bunch of guys, but they just don't want to mess with it too much. On the eve of its partner summit, CA CEO Sanjay Kumar played chess with just about every major executive in the company but left channels relatively untouched. Kumar said there were other areas that needed more attention.

Have you ever met a top executive who once made his living running channels? Each year, we are introduced to a bevy of executives charged with re-energizing and revamping the partner organization they inherited from an individual who moved out,not up. When was the last time a senior executive who ran channels for an organization was promoted to a worldwide sales role? No channel veteran I know has ever been welcomed into the presidential suite.

The solution-provider executives attending these events are out to make some tough decisions about the products they support. AlphaNet Solutions CTO Anthony Ferrigno attended CA World, but, oddly enough, it was his Cisco relationship that was foremost on his mind. The scenario he was mulling over was whether to dive further into CA's technology to build solutions at the expense of his Cisco work,Cisco is getting costly to support. In an era of shrinking IT budgets and capital that is tighter than Pamela Anderson's pants, solution providers are having difficulty supporting all their vendors' certification requirements.

It is not the vertical markets that matter as much anymore as the area of technology specialization. So says Michele Drolet, the disarming, charming and alarming president of Conqwest. Drolet's firm does one thing and one thing only,security solutions. And yes, she is out there competing with the big firms every day like EDS and IBM Global Services. She has to convince CIOs to do business with her company on the basis of its expertise in one thing,security.

Based on the partner events we attended, IBM and CA have fairly stable and content channel relationships. Sun is far too nervous and narrow to accomplish its lofty goals while Cisco's channel is facing problems that only Chambers can resolve,like ending the conflict between telcos and VARs. When the CEO has to step in, you know the channel problems are pretty serious.

However, the biggest mistake all these firms make is they fail to capitalize on the incredible efforts they put into their partner conferences. Like a sprinter who faints at the end of a blazing run, these companies finish their partner events, pack up and go home. What they really should focus on is bottling up all the energy and the messages they honed and then disseminate the results to the broad solution-provider community.

What's your opinion of channel management? Drop me a line at [email protected]. n