Hitachi To Roll Out Service SKUs To Partners

HDS' channel product and services push focuses on the Thunder 9500 series of storage arrays aimed at the small and midsize markets. The new group of services will draw from the best practices, training and certification programs HDS's direct team has used for years, Charlie Wallace, HDS' director of Global Channel Marketing, told CRN at the Solution Provider XChange 2003 conference in Orlando earlier this week. (XChange is put on by CRN's parent company CMP Media.)

Wallace said the services will be offered in different SKUs for resale and will range from end-user site evaluation to break-fix to various software packages, although details are still being finalized. Margins, he added, will probably range from 18 to 20 percent.

"Most solution providers haven't performed these specific services hundreds and hundreds of times (on HDS products) so why should they spend their time reinventing the rules," he said. "Now they have a reliable process they can follow from A to Z," Wallace said.

The services offering follows HDS' first partner program, True North Solutions Alliance Program, a four-tiered program the vendor officially launched in July.

Bernie Franczak, manager of solution provider HPM Networks, San Jose, Calif., said the new services will benefit solution providers by saving them money.

"Solution providers work on the principle of low overhead, and having a Hitachi service person on the bench is expensive," he said. "The ability to leverage services from a manufacturer on a one-off basis is great. It's like an insurance policy."

Barbara Ingram, marketing projects manager at Solarcom, a large solution provider in Norcross, Ga., said that based on her company's strong relationship with HDS she expects the services "to be well-tested and highly reliable."

"If you're already in the Hitachi space those best practices may help eliminate some problems you may already have encountered," she said. "It would be less of an investment for us if those services were already packaged."

HDS plans to increase its number of solution provider partners to about 450 within the next year, said Wallace, who came to Hitachi last March, after spending six years at Seagate in a variety of channel and marketing roles. Over the last year Hitachi has increased its indirect support staff to 200 from about 25 and splits its business 50-50 between direct and indirect, Wallace said. HDS' direct sales reps focus on four to five enterprise accounts each in six North American regions and are given incentives to drive all other sales through the channel, Wallace said.

"The strategy for the organization is to drive as much business into the channel as possible," he said. "Our program is really well-rounded, in the fact that Hitachi has transformed itself from a direct to an indirect company."

Solarcom's Ingram said HDS' channel team has provided the company with solid marketing and sales support.

"As we were willing to sell their products, they were willing to bring their marketing department into the mix," Ingram said. "You don't always find that with other vendors. With Hitachi, there was a personal interface and quick approval to do what we needed to do."