EMC Southern Africa yesterday rolled out its pre-sales elite programme, saying the channel's contribution to overall sales had grown massively over the past year.
Speaking at the event, Nick Christodoulou, regional channel manager of EMC Southern Africa, said this is the year of the channel for EMC.
EMC officials also revealed that the programme was a first of its kind in the company's history and is also set to be spread out in other regions, like Europe.
Christodoulou revealed that the pre-sales elite programme is made up of 35 of SA's top pre-sales technical specialists. He also pointed out that, initially, they had over 70 potential members, which they had to trim down to 35.
Among the partners that were at the function were Aptronics, Axiz Workgroup, Business Connexion, CSS Tirisano, Datacentrix, Dimension Data, First Distribution, First Technology, Integr8IT, Itgility, Puleng, Risc Technology, Sizwe IT Group, StorTech, TCM, Troye and Ubuntu.
"We took great care to target the cr`eme de la cr`eme of South Africa's pre-sales technicians, those who concentrate on complex solutions," said Christodoulou.
According to EMC, members of the programme benefit from access to confidential roadmaps, invite-only product launches and partner events, free certifications, competitive reviews and quarterly social events.
Also speaking at the event, Jonathan Clarke, alliances manager at EMC Southern Africa, said pre-sales plays a critical role to the profitability of the company.
"All too often we focus our engagement either with senior executives or salespeople and we miss the importance of the guy or girl who physically designs the solution or sells its technical aspects to the customer. You guys are where the tyre actually hits the tarmac. You are the ones who really do the business for us."
Clarke revealed that the major objective of the programme is to develop and maintain a direct relationship between partner pre-sales and EMC.
"We also aim to ensure partner readiness for pre-sales engagements as well as establishing loyalty for future business opportunities."
He also noted that EMC aims to make its partner pre-sales the best body in the southern African IT market space.
In a statement, EMC says the pre-sales elite programme has four tiers - bronze, silver, gold and platinum.
It explains that members start on bronze and are rated on criteria such as skills, attendance at listed conferences, accreditations, certifications, attendance at pre-sales events, informal training, and completion of successful configurations. Each member's tier rating will be reviewed quarterly.
Clarke said members can be upgraded or downgraded in these tiers depending on their performance.
Christodoulou says the members will elect an independent committee consisting of their representatives to advise EMC Southern Africa on what needs to be done to improve the programme going forward.
"There's no doubt that EMC's partner pre-sales community plays a major role in earning customer confidence, building relationships and identifying solutions for our common customer success," he says.
"We received an excellent response to the launch of the programme, and I'm pleased to say that people are excited about this initiative and proud to be part of it. We are looking forward to positive developments in the months ahead."
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