3Com South Africa is planning to help its partners penetrate new corporate markets for its networking solutions by appointing key account managers to build and sustain direct relationships with potential customers.
In launching its new Direct Touch model, Chris van Niekerk, regional manager of 3Com SA, said the responsibilities of some internal staff had been re-focused to address end-user needs and additional staff were currently being recruited for Direct Touch positions within 3Com.
"The implementation of this new demand creation strategy has become critical to make sure that a corporate customer specifies 3Com solutions when buying new networking equipment.
"Our aim is to develop, build and maintain relationships with new corporate clients, while working with our partners to ensure the maintenance of on-going good relationships with our existing customer base," he said.
Van Niekerk emphasised that the new strategy is not a re-introduction of a direct sales model. All sales will still go through the company`s channel partners and 3Com is committed to its partner distribution model.
"Our objective is demand creation. Potential customers will be presented with a list of suitable partners and they will be responsible for making the final choice," he stressed.
According to 3Com, the need for this strategy change came about because of the growing competitiveness in the networking market globally and the non-exclusive nature of reseller agreements.
"This typically results in resellers not selling optimum solutions to the customers, but rather giving them what they want even if it is not a suitable solution," he said.
"Business dynamics today are such that resellers cannot afford to be vendor exclusive. And we don`t expect them to be. What we have to do is create loyalty among both our resellers and our market," added Van Niekerk.
Among 3Com SA`s recent loyalty-creating initiatives are also its Focus and Trade-Up programmes.
In terms of the Focus programme, 3Com has pledged to reward channel partners who make a commitment to build in-house skills and develop new markets. It has set aside an initial $1 million for additional rebates, incentives, training and marketing support.
For both customers and channel partners, the new Trade-Up programme makes it easier for existing 3Com network users to buy new equipment by allowing users to trade-up between product groups such as managed to unmanaged hubs, or chassis products for new stackable items and vice versa.
Non-3Com customers can also now benefit from discounts when they install the latest 3Com networking equipment.
"Together, the three new programmes - Focus, Trade-Up and Direct Touch - present a strong case for both customers and the channel to make 3Com their partner of choice," said Van Niekerk.
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