Johannesburg, 11 Apr 2008
Novell has realigned itself from being a "pretty direct" company, to a "channel-centric" one. So says Novell SA country manager Michelle Beetar.
"We have made a strategic decision that we are a software infrastructure company and that we are not going to compete with our partners on software, or services. We are becoming specialists within the markets in which we operate," she adds, "and are focused on four pillars."
These are identity and security management technologies, Open Platform Systems, which includes all of its Linux and Open Source technologies, Systems and Resource Management, including server and desktop management suites, asset management and match management, and the workgroup business unit, which includes the Groupwise and enterprise products.
According to Desan Naidoo, previously acting country manager, now sales director: "We split the organisation across those four business units around October/November last year. We've specialised the organisation around those four and have technical and sales teams specialised into each area. [New channel manager] Matthew Lee is focusing on ensuring our partners specialise within those units.
"The sales team is now channel focused as well and changing our structure internally has increased the touch points the sales team has with the channel," he says, "We have business unit sales specialists selling through the channel; and technical sales specialists primarily tasked with working directly with the channel, as well as Matt."
"We have about 15 specialised partners at all levels [of the partner programme]," says Lee."We have gaps in the Systems and Resource Management unit and have an initiative running at the moment that will see us plug that gap in the next few weeks. We are contributing to the specialisation process, paying for partners' technical specialisation and paying for an event for them to use as a forum to take this into their customer base.
"Where previously we had partners at various levels and we thought they took care of all of our business we're moving to specialisation where we require them to be certified and have technical and sales skills on board, hence the gaps," notes Naidoo.
Novell international previously had a large consulting division in-house, but, says Naidoo, that was not the case here, where Novell relied on its partners for consulting expertise. "We had to fix that, as we were attracting a lot of criticism from partners who said we were competing with them," Naidoo notes.
Beeter says the company will retain account managers for "strategic accounts", and will also retain Novell Consulting. "It's a small team, and measured on partner success," she adds. "We aim to give our partners all they need to be successful and will be communicating more and ensuring they are trained correctly."
Share