“We package our products with good offers because dissatisfied partners quickly switch to a different vendor”

Being with HP India for over seven years and with the Enterprise Solutions Group for the last two years, Avijit Basu knows exactly how to bring out the best in marketing promotions. With two decades of industry experience, he is planning to give customers the best through HP’s channel partners in the network storage solutions business. Avijit outlines the company’s strategies to DQCI and evaluates the significance of having a strong relationship with partners. 

What are HP’s channel initiatives for this year?

We are presently working on two types of methodologies for the volume and value business. In the former, we are introducing the buy-back scheme to give our customers more value for money. When the customer is looking out for a new product, we want to give it to them with an attractive exchange scheme. 

We had introduced a similar program about five to six months ago, but it didn’t work as we expected. Also, customers complained that there were too many formalities for the exchange and it took more than a day. We now understand that customers want quick action. 

So this time, we are making sure that transactions are hassle-free and the customer can get the product exchanged the moment he or she goes to the partner. It is very important for us to realize that whatever we are offering, competes with the best in the industry and I can assure you that this time we are going to be fully successful. 

We are also making sure that payments to partners are also made on time for this scheme. This will ensure that they will go all out to promote the campaign, as they will get a good margin from it. 

What initiatives are you taking in the value category?

In the value type category, we are organizing specialized training for our partners. Earlier we had conducted a five-city training program for them. It was very successful and we keep scheduling such enhanced training programs.

We also organized a focussed off-site program for our Gold partners. Under this program, the difficult issues faced by our best 25 partners were addressed. Such initiatives help us retain our most priced partners because we give all the required information about the business proposition. We discuss their expectations from us and also tell them what we expect from them. This kind of personal interaction helps generate more revenues. 

What specific measures are you taking to increase profitability of partners?

We offer our partners the best deal in the industry. We package our products with good offers for them because we know that dissatisfied customers or partners do not hesitate to switch to a different vendor. 

Vendors like HP already have products that contain pre-cursors to the organic product growth and understand where the market is headed. We have also conducted storage specific events for our partners to generate leads. These events help us understand the need of our customers.

We are now focusing on the prospect of after-sales service to enhance better understanding on the value of the product. We are also improving the marketing activities aimed at partners. Moreover, we have decided that each of our storage Gold partners will be selling high-end products where the profit margin is much more. 

One of the biggest threats faced by partners today is direct business by vendors. What are you doing to remove this fear from a dealer’s mind?

We are trying to make the most of the business through our channel network. But currently it is not happening. We plan to sell 85% of our networking storage solutions through our partners. We know that direct business makes partners insecure and we are going forward in a direction where we will sell our products mostly through our partners. We have assured them that soon they will be doing a majority of our business transactions.

What is your policy with respect to services business?

Today, to succeed in the service provider industry , one has to attract and retain existing customers. You must understand and evaluate every aspect of the services business-–from the time you create and deliver a new service, keeping your customers satisfied, efficiently billing for these services and finally, to understand new service opportunities as you move forward.

HP always encourages service businesses, more so because, it enables us to extract more support from our partners. We usually give away support packages and include additional warranty programs to our partners. We also allot service providers status to some of our loyal channel members, as they need this back-end support from us. 

How big is your channel network?

HP has a well-entrenched channel network. We have 40 storage Gold partners who mainly focus on high-end products. Overall, we have 700 retail outlets spread across 226 cities in the country. 

Will you add to the number of existing partners?

We are not planning to increase our storage Gold partners this fiscal. There is always a possibility that some of the partners may quit. Then we will just accommodate the vacuum that is created with their departure. 

I believe that this is a consolidation period for the network storage solutions business. So HP won’t expand its partner base for the time being. We would rather wait and then choose the right time to expand our dealer base in this sector.

What is HP’s warranty policy?

Warranty period and response time varies from product to product. If a product has been used for 24/7 for a whole year, then its warranty period will be different from the product, which has been used for a lesser period. But I can assure you that we offer the best warranty program in the industry.

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