Need Support? Just Ask Your Disty

Distributors large and small are reinvigorating their value proposition beyond their core "warehouse and ship" mission. Marketing support, financing, solution building, technology training and managed-service infrastructure are among the "value-add" services most distributors offer to solution providers, which increase their value to vendors and VARs alike.

The problem is, many solution providers either don't know about or won't use the support services offered by distributors.

Take marketing, for instance. Distributors offer numerous marketing-support initiatives--everything from MDFs and co-op advertising funds to collateral material and lead generation. Even though many of these marketing services are automated, solution providers--particularly small and midsize ones--aren't utilizing them enough.

"Everyone at the table is so busy that they don't have the time to figure out how to use the MDF dollars that are out there," says Kirk Robinson, vice president of North America channel marketing at Ingram Micro.

Some solution providers are keenly cognizant of the benefit of distribution services. Leveraging presales and postsales support, technical support, marketing and business-model development aids, solution providers are growing their business. The trick, those savvy solution providers say, is simply asking distributors for assistance.

"If [solution providers] start talking to a [distributor's] executive management, if they start doing planning sessions, if they roll out the finance programs, the service programs, and they take advantage of the distributor's support, the distributor will help them grow, and they'll grow with the distributor," says Sean Burke, president of GovPlace, an Irvine, Calif.-based government and education solution provider. "But you have to ask for it; distributors aren't just going to give you opportunity and support. A lot of these guys simply aren't utilizing their distributors' resources."

To maintain their value to the channel, distributors bear the onus of informing solution providers about what they offer. Outreach is especially important to smaller VARs, which don't always have the wherewithal about efficient operations and growth strategies.

"If you think about the vast majority of VARs, most are relatively small, privately held firms that don't differentiate the personal check for the mortgage from the personal check to hire a new specialist to attack new vertical markets or specialized technologies," says Roy Vallee, chairman and CEO of Avnet.

Vallee says distributors have a responsibility to first listen to their solution-provider customers about the trends that they're seeing in their markets, and about their technology and business needs. From there, they can better craft both solutions and support programs that meet VARs' specific needs. Enablement, he says, is about providing the right tools to the right solution providers in the right markets.

Many distributors are taking the guesswork out of solution building, bundling complementary pieces of technology into holistic systems, thus taking the guesswork out of building business solutions. ScanSource, for instance, has taken individual technologies from different product vendors--such as Microsoft and Symbol Technologies--to create an out-of-the-box, point-of-sale solution for small businesses.

Vallee believes understanding the long-term implications of a support initiative also influences a solution provider's willingness to take advantage of a distributor's programs. A distributor may provide funding to a solution provider to hire new sales staff to attack a new market. But solution providers may not want to accept that funding, since it usually comes with an expiration date, after which they'll be left with the payroll expense even if the investment isn't panning out with a supporting revenue stream.

"The quality of the program and the credibility of the distributor offering the program will be the factors that move VARs in the direction that we're trying to enable them," Vallee says.