Westcon Focuses On Stimulus With New VAR Resources

Now that the $787.2 billion federal stimulus has been in place for more than three months, the distributor's executives say, it's time for VARs to get down to brass tacks, understand where the money is going to flow (and where it has already started to flow) and understand how they can reap the business opportunities from those stimulus dollars.

"People are tired of 50,000-foot views of the stimulus," said Ron Sheps, vertical markets manager at Westcon Group, in a Channelweb.com interview. "If I'm a reseller in Des Moines, Iowa, I want to know what's going on in Des Moines, Iowa. If I'm in Marietta, Ga., and a school district in Marietta, Ga., just got $50,000 for a network, I want to know about it."

Westcon has created three different Web resources for its U.S. resellers to learn about stimulus plans, including a general public sector site (publicsector.westcon.com), a health-care site (us.healthcare.westcon.com/content) and a section of its established Westcon Federal solution site specific to stimulus issues (us.federal.westcon.com).

The Web portals are the next logical step, Sheps said, after Westcon's series of stimulus-centric Teletrack Webinars, which it began in early March and targeted to specific public sector verticals such as federal, state and local, and health care. Sheps said more than 1,000 Westcon VARs participated in the Teletrack Webinars, and they've been cataloged on the news sites following a number of requests, he added, to have the presentation material made available.

Under each section, be it state and local, or education, Westcon -- which specializes in networking, convergence, security and mobility products -- describes the key technology areas it's identified as revenue opportunities. Under state and local, for example, are mobility/wireless, legacy systems integration, asset management, government business continuity, first responders, universal wireless, e-government and information life-cycle management.

"Our goal, as always, for our resellers is to have them follow the money," Sheps said. "During this 90 days, we weren't standing still, and what we tried to do was examine the most common opportunities we thought we were going to see. We heard up front the expression 'shovel ready.' Well, that's great, but I'm a reseller and I don't sell asphalt or shovels. We wanted to translate all these terms and opportunities into local opportunities for resellers. Here's a core solution, with a few add-on solutions, a diagram of what the solution should look like, and the products you should be recommending."

Ultimately, Sheps said, he'd like the Westcon stimulus Web sites to be searchable such that a VAR could type in his or her location and technology focus and find a list of stimulus-funded projects within a 100-mile radius.

"No one has any time to waste," added Susan Kennedy, field marketing director at Westcon. "There's so much information coming down the pike about the recovery act that folks were pretty much getting overwhelmed. I've spent time talking to the resellers, and while we look at this as a tool, we really want to teach them how to fish."

Although many of the vendors working with Westcon are developing stimulus-geared training of their own for VARs, Sheps said just as many are deferring to Westcon for leadership in helping solution providers capture the dollars.

"I think this is an extremely compelling benefit for channel partners who are trying to figure out how to convert the 'stim' from a governmental maze into actual dollars and cents," said Ken Presti, principal analyst at Presti Research and Consulting, which evaluates vendor channel programs and VAR business. "Westcon has taken something inherently complex and mapped out a process for getting the deal at a time when IT contracts in general seem to be fewer and farther in between."

It's also a partner recruitment and loyalty tool for Westcon, Presti pointed out.

"And one of the most creative ones I've seen in a long time," he added. "Specialized distributors -- just like anyone else who is specialized -- need to go that extra mile to differentiate themselves and prove their value. I think this initiative really accomplishes that."