At a time when many major PC and peripherals vendors are switching their sales model from going exclusively through the dealer channel to a mixture of direct sales over the Web and selected dealers, Hewlett-Packard South Africa is broadening its dealer base.
The company has launched a plan aimed at expanding its dealer network throughout the region and increasing the company`s dependency on its PC and peripherals dealer network.
Key to this enhanced channel focus is the establishment of a R1 000 000 HP Competency Centre in Johannesburg to increase the technical and sales skills of new and existing dealers and make them more aware of how they can leverage sales and financial support and pricing incentives from HP and its main distributors, Siltek Distribution Dynamics (SDD) and TarsusTechnologies.
"Unlike most companies who only focus on those dealers who are active in major accounts, we want to encourage all dealers, large and small, to see HP as a total solutions company in the Intel environment from the SOHO to corporate sectors," says Thierry Boulanger, HP PC Product manager, Hewlett-Packard South Africa.
"We believe we can enlarge our market significantly, particularly in the smaller company. We`ll be giving dealers, who might only be supplying HP printers as part of a mixed vendor solution, access to our complete range plus the product knowledge, skills and incentives to sell an end-to-end HP solution. The Competency Centre is key to this as one of its main purposes is the transfer of skills to the channel."
The Competency Centre, which opened in Johannesburg on March 18, will be replicated in Cape Town and Durban at a later date. They will feature live configurations of up to 90% of the company`s HP PC and peripherals technology from mobile systems, desktop PC, printers and scanners right up to clustered environments with full systems and network management facilities.
Dealers will receive world-rated STAR training at the centre and once they have achieved the required level of competency, will qualify for better and more flexible pricing deals from HP`s distributors as well as enjoy receive direct marketing and sales support from HP.
In addition, smaller dealers who might not be able to carry extensive demonstration stock, will be able to use the Competency Centre to demo and benchmark equipment to customers as well as attend product update and strategy presentations.
"We`ll also use the centre to provide specific training to individual companies if we identify a need for such training," says Boulanger.
The Centre will also be used to expose employees on the HP graduate training programme to market and channel needs. The graduates, which are part of HP`s social responsibility programme, will work at the centre and so will have hands-on experience of what Boulanger calls "the softer side of the business - not just the technical."
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