HP holds partner advisory board meet

Pooja S

New Delhi

February 12th, 2008

In their bid to understand the problems and challenges faced by the partner
community y across different verticals, HP recently conducted a partner advisory
board meet in Delhi. A total of 25 channel partners across various product
categories participated in the event and gave their feedback on many of the
company's policies and also suggested that the company should collaborate with a
few partners to reach out more effectively to the customers. HP representatives
clarified that they want partners to play an increasing role to better the
company's market share and penetration across India.

Incidentally this is the first time that the company has rolled out such an
initiative and now proposes to make it an annual feature, which would
incorporate feedback sessions on a quarterly basis.

The advisory board was designed in such a way that a premium partner from
every region was present to give an insight into the market and the issues being
faced by the partners in their respective regions.

Talking about the initiative, Sameer Mathur, Solution Partners Organization,
Personal Systems Group, HP India stated, "Majority of our business is
managed through partners and since they have a vast experience across varied
verticals we thought that it is a good opportunity to take feedback from them on
our products and policies. This will help us work more collaboratively."

He further added that HP wants to re-look at their existing channel policy in
terms of product price point, strategies and customer satisfaction.

Elaborating on the same Mathur added, "Prior to this we had never
thought of using our existing base of partners to reach out to newer customers.
This is a new initiative that we are going to role out soon. We will create a
plan based upon the feedback taken from the partners and identify the markets
and verticals that we have to explore."

Mathur further indicated that many of the company's clients look for certain
products that are slightly de-featured and that they were going to make plans
and strategies in a way that it caters to the customer's requirement alongside
that of the partner. The company will also focus majorly on their printing
business and will work collaboratively with partners to increase their overall
market share in the printing space. HP will also role out initiatives to
increase awareness penetration of the color printers products in India.

At the event partners also gave feedback on many of the company's existing
channel policies. It may be noted that last year HPs direct sales team locked
horns with its partners and went about poaching many of the customers that
actually belonged to the partners.

Throwing light on the same Mathur mentioned, "HP has a hybrid model of
addressing certain customers directly and still others through partners. Last
year there were certain problems between our direct model and our partners,
following which we launched a new initiative called rules of engagement policy
wherein we designed a documented framework mentioning the accounts where we will
allow our partners to operate directly and which HP would look for active
participation from partners. This framework will ensure that we don't have
situations where conflicts will arise between the company and the
partners."

The above policy has already been rolled out for partners and the company has
recently completed its first round of communication with them. However there are
certain issues to be addressed from the execution point of view and the company
is working on that.

Apart from this, some of the partners suggested that the company should make
investments into their (partner's) key sales and management members so that they
in turn can help the business to grow.

Sharing his thoughts on that Mathur said that over the past few years a lot
of HP's partners have scaled up to become relatively big. "Partners are
playing the role of the CEO's and have to run their organization through their
sales team. This has generated the need for developing leaders in the company
who can manage operations effectively. So partners want us to invest in
developing such leaders through management, academy and motivational programmes,"
he added.