Ability to sell will govern industry shake-out

Oracle SA is embarking on an intensive sales training programme for its channel partners to enhance sales strengths in its channel.

According to Jacqui Gogele, country channel manager at Oracle South Africa, channel partners that come out of a services background often struggle to sell on their solutions and expand their user base.

"Channel partners, particularly in the system integration and value-added reseller spaces, will need to sharpen their selling skills to survive an inevitable industry shake-out."

Gogele`s advice to partners is to get the right sales skills on board. Typically, this means a business-oriented sales person, with product knowledge, able to sell comprehensive business solutions.

"We have done a lot of technical training in the past. Now we are focusing on sales to a much higher degree than we have done historically. We have to skill partners in solution selling," she says.

In line with this programme, Oracle is also encouraging its partners to widen their market activities beyond the established user base.

"Partners still prefer to operate in their comfort zones and focus on selling into the existing customer base instead of opening new markets. On-going penetration of new markets is something that is lacking in this country. Companies that want to be successful in the future have to win new accounts," says Gogele.

She maintains that consolidation across the channel will be the only means of survival for companies that do not grow their business sufficiently, pointing out that this is not necessarily a bad thing as the right mixture of complementary skills will result in a stronger, multi-skilled operation.

She sees considerable consolidation opportunities among technology partners, smaller ISVs and black empowerment companies, provided BEE is adopted for the right business reasons rather than the window-dressing motivations of the past.

"There`s far too much competition in the market, so it makes business sense for people with complementary skills to join forces.

"Oracle`s goal is to achieve channel quality not quantity. We are not planning to grow our partner base to any great extent. Our growth will be focused on our ISVs and we`re looking to achieve market penetration through a growth in competencies and skills within our existing partner base and to get them up to the next certification level," says Gogele.