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HP plans to measure girth, thrust of channel pitches

Vendor deploys iQuote to improve bid times and attach rates

HP will measure reseller pitch rates through the global rollout of the iQuote system, allowing it to market more aggressively or shift promotions.

Developed by Tim Moyle, director at channelcentral.net – former manager at CCD – the tool was piloted by Westcoast and Avnet but has gone live across chunks of its PC, server and storage biz lines with networking and printers to be added.

A key element is cutting down the time it will take resellers to configure and order kit via distribution – previously done manually with often heavy input from technical departments – based on real-time availability.

But Moyle said that channelcentral.net learnt through the pilot that the tool also allows HP to monitor the channel sales mix to drive up attach rates of options including memory, hard drives – which generates higher profits for HP and bigger wedges of rebate for resellers.

"Never before has HP been able to see what the channel quotes," he told El Reg, "so it means that HP can measure the pitch rates against certain systems – the number of times a product is offered to a customer – to increase the attach rate."

"HP can start to look at a product sector to measure its performance and if it needs to move prices, promotions and advertising," added Moyle.

Alan Finden, distribution sales manager at HP confirmed the tool is being used PC disties Ingram Micro, C2000, SDG and Westcoast while all four plus Avnet had pushed it out for ESSN – particularly storage and ProLiant.

"iQuote is here to de-mystify the configuration process," he said.

The plan is to roll out iQuote – based on a subscription model – to networking lines in the coming months as well as to the Imaging and Printing Group. ®

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