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HDS: channel STILL 60-65% of UK biz, says local COO

It's all about annuity services but 'we hadn't put a plan together for partners'

HDS' UK COO reckons the proportion of channel sales relative to the direct biz hasn't shifted in recent years because it failed to carve up "solutions" and "services" for partners.

The previous management including UK boss Stephen Ball - a Computacenter staffer - said in 2011 that within three years he wanted partners to generate 80 per cent of sales, up from 60 per cent.

But Lynn Collier, who last month took on the mantle as UK COO, looking after direct sales reps and the partner base - following the Neill Burton's departure from the role of channel overlord - told us the dial hasn't moved as a percentage.

"We haven't had the opportunity to propose a number of solutions to partners over the years, we've been quite platform based… we haven't put a good plan together for them," she told The Channel.

HDS has worked with parent Hitachi and wider tech alliances vendors including SAP, Symantec and Informatica, to build "solutions stacks" and will more heavily promote these to channel types.

"These vary from pre-determined converged stacks with UCP Pro to VMware or SAP Hana… then we look to [channel] partners to provide specialist deployment services."

With regard to Object Storage, HDS stitched together specific combinations for the public sector, and for the commercial world in areas such as finance and healthcare.

Collier said "We are putting together something meaningful for them rather than trying to sheep-dip the whole portfolio", to drive "better commercial arrangements to drive annuity [revenues]".

A well placed channel source told us the reason the proportion of channel biz is not higher is because HDS has an appetite to take large deals direct. ®

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