HP Partners To New Channel Chief: Keep The Momentum Going

Hewlett-Packard solution providers have one message for Adrian Jones, HP's new Americas channel chief: Keep the channel momentum going.

HP enterprise partners, who gathered this week for an unprecedented, side-by-side sales and training symposium with HP's direct-sales team, said they hope the former McData sales executive continues to reach out to partners to drive sales growth.

"The channel is doing a ton of business for HP," said Computex President and Co-CEO Sam Haffar, a Houston-based solution provider who expects his HP business to increase 50 percent this year. "Keep the momentum going, and reach out to your partners."

Haffar said he couldn't be more pleased with the sales symposium that brought together some 500 HP partners with the HP direct-sales team. "This is the first time that HP has done that," he said. "It was HP and the partners getting the same training, messaging and content. We have become a unified sales force. The time is ripe for HP to overtake this market."

Haffar said he's doing 30 percent more joint sales engagements with HP this year vs. a year ago. "[HP Chairman and CEO] Mark Hurd obviously set the [channel] strategy, and HP is following through with it," he said. "They are working a lot closer with the channel. There are only a few named accounts in every region. The channel is going after the midmarket. Anything non-Global 1000 is channel-driven."

HP partners credited a strong Technology Solutions Group sales team led by Managing Director and Senior Vice President Jack Novia and Senior Vice President and U.S. Country Manager Dave Booth, along with a robust HP enterprise product set, including blade servers, for helping to drive the channel momentum. They said HP's plan to drive specific solutions engagements around VMware, Oracle, SAP, Microsoft SQL Server and Information Life-cycle Management is working.

What's more, HP partners say the Palo Alto, Calif., IT giant is taking significant share from IBM in the booming blade server market. With $91.7 billion in sales for its last fiscal year, HP last year surpassed IBM as the world's largest IT provider. HP has also surpassed Dell to take hold of the No. 1 PC maker position.

"HP has a seasoned sales team that has done the right thing and got their channel aligned with the field direct-sales team," said Rich Baldwin, president and CEO of Nth Generation Computing, an HP partner in San Diego. "Being HP-exclusive is really working for us. That is the best decision we made. My business is up, profits are up and we're having a great year."

Baldwin added that he expects his HP sales to be up 30 percent this year, and that follows 30 percent sales growth the prior year.

Baldwin said he doesn't know Jones, but his message to him is the following: "You have a good team in place. Hopefully, [you] can provide some leadership and keep things going in the right direction."

Ron Dupler, president and CEO of GreenPages, a solution provider based in Kittery, Maine, said HP has become his company's top brand in terms of solution revenue sales growth. He expects GreenPages' HP sales to be up 25 percent this year.

"Over the last six months, they have become a very important partner in terms of our overall solutions strategy," he said. "We are very pleased with what they are doing, which is embracing delivering a high-value solution to the end-user client in combination with their channel partners. It is a well-conceived program that includes the channel in a big, big way."

NEXT: More partners urge HP to keep channel rolling

Dupler said his message to Jones is this: "Keep the momentum going, and keep driving forward."

"From our standpoint right now, they are doing a fantastic job," he said of HP. "They are executing very well and really pitching the channel as one of their main competitive advantages."

Pete Busam, COO of Decisive Business Systems, an HP solution provider in Pennsauken, N.J., cautioned that Jones shouldn't try to make changes too quickly. "He should leave existing programs alone for at least 18 months so we can make them work," Busam said. "It costs us to reinvest in new programs when they change."

Bill Barry, senior vice president at CompuCom Systems, a Dallas-based solution provider, also is looking for stability in HP's channel programs.

"We've made good progress working with HP over the past six months. What I'd really like to see is not too many drastic changes," he said. "The attach ratio programs work for us. Partnering on enterprise-class products work for us and for HP."

Busam noted that Jones should get out and talk to partners as soon as possible to get their feedback on what works and what doesn't in HP's channel programs. "Everyone in the channel would love to talk to him and hear what he has to say and, hopefully, he can hear what the channel has to say," he said. "Could [an outsider] bring a fresh perspective? Fresh faces bring a fresh look, and that might be an added benefit."

The hiring of Jones, who was named vice president and general manager of HP's Americas Solution Partners organization, continues a trend by Hurd to go outside the company to bring in key executives.

Since joining HP nearly two years ago, Hurd has hired former Gateway executive and palmOne CEO Todd Bradley as executive vice president of HP's Personal Systems Group. He also tapped former Dell CIO Randy Mott as HP's executive vice president and CIO.