Avnet, IBM To Take Sales Training Online
Unveiled at the distributor's partner conference in San Antonio this week, the portal, called Ignition Online, highlights four areas of training for partners including: basic product information, sales skills, information on how to do business with IBM and how to do business with Avnet. Solution providers also have access to links to specific information on IBM's Partner World Online and Avnet's Channel Connection Web portals.
Ignition Online is a response to feedback at Avnet's partner conference last year where partners expressed a desire to streamline training on products and the ways in which IBM and Avnet work with customers and each other, the mastery of which could take rookie sales reps up to two years.
"The challenge was the complexity of doing business in our environment," said Sara Jensen, VP of Product Marketing for Avnet Partner Solutions, IBM America's Business Unit. "If there were any ways Avnet could help [partners] shorten that time frame and get them the training that they need, it would have big value to them."
The site combines presentations with audio explanations, live training videos and interactive training lessons complete with exams. For now, the site is focused on sales training, but in the future Avnet and IBM may partner to offer technical training through the portal, Jensen said.
John Bunting, vice president of sales at Distributed Systems Services, a solution provider in West Chester, Penn., participated in a two-month evaluation of the portal. Two recent hires at DSS, one with many years of training from IBM, and the other with none, were given the job.
For the more experienced rep, the site offered information on working with Avnet that was valuable, but for the rookie, the training had greater benefit, Bunting said.
"The beauty of it is that what we used to do with the reps was have them follow around another rep and have that rep teach them tricks of the trade. This was a way that they could do it themselves, at their own pace... For a new employee it takes care of a lot of the basics," he said.