3Com says margin pressure on resellers is counter-productive

The price-performance qualities of networking equipment should ensure value is delivered to the customer so there is no need to squeeze resellers' margins, says Trish Simpson, 3Com Africa's channel manager.

“It is in our customers' best interests for us to stay invested in our channel to support its financial viability. We all need to make a profit to stay in business, and grow our skills base to ensure effective solutions are devised and implemented to our customers' advantage.

“Vendors and customers who put unrealistic cost-cutting pressures on resellers may well find the skills required to support a dynamic networking infrastructure have gone elsewhere.”

Simpson says 3Com encourages channel profitability by protecting its existing resellers. “This leads to channel stability and assures our customers that the investment made by our channel partners in skilling up their resources is nurtured and secured.”

Globally, 3Com is seeing growth in market share because economic pressures prompt customers to seek vendors that provide value. Research firm Gartner calls it a “flight to value”, as customers demand solutions that effectively help them drive efficiency while they prepare for the economic upturn.

Simpson says 3Com provides a broad-based portfolio of high-quality edge-to-core networking solutions that deliver superior business value by leveraging open industry standards.

“To deliver a high standard of implementation and support to customer sites, our resellers need to make significant investments in their staff. They cannot do this if their margins are being squeezed. We support them to become viable businesses for the long-term. They can only achieve this if the relationship with their clients is built through exceptional, motivated - and profitable - support.”

3Com's “direct touch” approach to the market establishes an open consulting relationship with prospects and customers to explore their communications needs and help them devise networking strategies. This gives channel partners a framework within which to supply and support customers, while 3Com plays an oversight role.

“We will never take away resellers' relationships with their clients,” says Simpson. “Our role is to add value by having a higher-level view with communications insights that can help clients expand their horizons.”

She stresses that 3Com's growth “is based on our commitment to a channel model, and supporting partners and customers with strong 3Com consulting and network engineering skills”.