Posts Tagged ‘sales’

While hard to quantify, reports are streaming into Channelnomics from solution providers experiencing unusually high sales and request for quotes in what’s normally a low period of the year. The sudden surge is a good omen for 2012.

The storage appliance vendor says the number of registered partners in its worldwide channel network surged in 2011. Drawing new partners in is a combination of product features and channel programs that made sales easier and more profitable. It shows that technology and channel programs cannot stand independently.

Last summer, Hewlett-Packard stopped sales of TouchPad because no one wanted them. In China, Apple has suspended sales of its popular iPhone 4S because too many people want them. The two vendors are a perfect contrast of “need” vs. “want” in product sales.

The channel is entering 2012 with momentum and optimism. New opportunities abound for solution providers as the business community’s appetite for IT products and services increases. Here are a few of the resolutions the channel should make in the coming year.

Federal lawmakers are asking the State and Commerce departments to investigate NetApp and Blue Coat’s complicity in the sale of equipment to the Syrian government intended to support spying on dissidents. The bigger question: Who bears responsibility for reseller sales – the vendor, the reseller or both?

Spiceworks already operates a large, closed social community built around its 1.7 million users. The addition of Spice Buttons and Spiceworks Connects, a service similar to Facebook’s “Like” and Google’s “G+” buttons, is enabling users to share content with peers. It could be a first step in transforming Spiceworks and the IT marketplace.

Everyone is talking about cloud computing as the wave of the future. The reality, though, is few end users are buying cloud services. The channel needs these offerings to give customers the option; just like McDonald’s offers salads but still sells mostly fries.

A new study by Techaisle finds managed service providers are increasingly engaging end users with managed service offerings. The findings reinforce the need for more sales and marketing activity in the channel’s managed services segment.

Sales of Ethernet switches are increasing, as is competition between major vendors – most notably Cisco and Hewlett-Packard. The result is a decline in average sale prices, which could ultimately hurt solution providers caught between the buyer’s market and market-share hungry vendors.

Selling cloud computing comes with a certain safety net, as the average salary is above or in line with average sales professional salaries. What’s surprising is the number of solution providers who offer no base salary to their cloud salespeople.