HP Makes Right Call

By the end of last week, HP, for all practical purposes, had done just that. John Thompson, the vendor&'s Americas channel chief, said call-center telesales reps will no longer make outbound sales calls. That effectively muzzles what had become a Dell-like sales organization bent on cold-calling small and midsize businesses and to get to buy HP products direct. The problem, of course, was that many of the accounts called by HP reps were already buying HP products from solution providers. Despite that fact, the HP telesales force, well-trained in the art of the sale, often tried to wrestle that business away from solution providers by offering better direct pricing. This steal-business-from-solution-providers approach caused enormous angst between HP and its channel, while also blunting HP&'s efforts to gain SMB market share.

That sort of SMB sales strategy, simply put, is dumb. I can only guess that new HP President and CEO Mark Hurd took a look at the call-center operations and came to the same conclusion. Whoever made the ultimate decision to rein in this renegade operation, it was absolutely the right call and should have been done years ago.

The move is an absolutely clear message to solution providers that they will be at the vanguard of HP&'s SMB marketing strategy. Call-center reps will continue to take inbound calls, but their mission now is to steer those calls whenever possible to local solution providers. The message to customers is that HP products plus service and support from solution providers will provide the winning combination in SMB technology solutions.

Lest anyone doubt this is true, take a look at what happened to Dell last week. HP&'s direct rival in the PC business has seen its growth stall, and the big reason Dell suddenly has smoke coming out of its engine is that HP and Lenovo can match it on price and beat it on service by teaming with local solution providers.

Dell swears its direct model still works and that the company will be back. But I say remember November 2005: That&'s when HP turned the corner, and Dell hit the wall.

What&'s your impression of the HP call-center decision? Contact me via e-mail at [email protected].