Has CA Got the Right Stuff?
or helped run, the partner organization left long ago or occupy different roles. So several months ago, the company started assembling a channel organization from scratch. CEO John Swainson, among others, reached out to William Lipsin, a former IBM colleague, to basically rebuild CA's channel strategy--and he wasn't left with much. One of the first things Lipsin did was to assemble a great team of executives, some of whom also spent time at IBM.
Call me a cockeyed optimist, but I believe CA finally has the right team in place to lead a channel breakthrough. Yes, there were some smart, capable execs who held the channel job at CA before, but they were always under the thumb of direct sales or were saddled with a team that lacked enough depth or a true commitment from the executive suite. Finally, CA has a manager with a strong connection to the top executives who run sales, marketing, the whole outfit. But the question remains whether Lipsin can accomplish what so many individuals tried to do before and failed--some miserably. Let me go out on a limb and say I believe he can if he gets a few things in order.
Let's just say up-front that CA has a solid line of security, storage and management software products. If it didn't, the game would have been over long ago. But what it does not have yet is a message for the channel. It's got the executives (some of whom are pretty sharp dressers), it's got the products (some of you were selling ARCServe when I was in diapers) and it's got channel partners who, despite all the past insanity, still believe they can make money selling CA products. One such executive witnessed this firsthand at last month's VARBusiness 500 conference. Todd Palmer, CA's head of worldwide channel marketing, was our luncheon keynote speaker who literally just landed from a whirlwind globe-hopping trip to speak to the executives. Before he took to the podium, I asked a few influential VARs to give Palmer their thoughts on CA. Actually, they were asked to give him an earful, and they did. And they wouldn't have done so if they didn't care or believe that CA had an opportunity in the channel.
What Palmer heard, no doubt, was that CA needs a good story to tell the VAR community. IBM, for all its faults, is good at this, and since CA now has more IBMers than even IBM does, it needs to craft a message that will inspire the channel. That's the missing piece for CA. IBM talks up the midmarket as one of its big targets. Whether you like IBM's product mix or not, it's still got a message--one that revolves around partner profitability and the company's key product areas.
Another challenge Lipsin faces is getting CA's internal departments to support the channel. The CA channel organization will never be successful unless each department within the company becomes channel-friendly--if not channel-centric--and that means accounting, sales, marketing, product development, even the cafeteria and the gym. Lipsin must lead the channel and bring former partners back into the fold, and he has to do this with a sense of urgency. After all, there's only so much software a VAR--no matter how big--can sell. If rivals or newcomers to the enterprise software scene, such as Business Objects, are successful in recruiting partners, CA could find itself in a position similar to Novell's years ago when its channel fled to other platforms.
Lipsin has the team, the goods and certainly the smarts. If he crafts the right message and creates a channel culture inside CA, he'll be the last channel executive CA will ever need.
Let me know what you think of CA's chances in the channel at [email protected].