The Challenge
As part of growth objectives for the HP Storage Business Unit, the team needed to better understand the economic implications of partner engagement and how it impacts scalable profitability. Insights from a recent partner conference revealed that deal-level revenue and margin is driven by the level of overall partner commitment.
Some of the primary goals, priorities, and focus areas identified by the HP Storage team that were included in the profitability research study:
- Enhancing HP Storage’s Position- HP Storage is striving to build on its position as a go-to vendor to IT Solution Providers who support and advise Global/Fortune 500 firms. Today, most engagements with these Solution Providers are driven by customer-led opportunity or direct sales activity.
- Encouraging Proactive Investment- HP Storage wishes to motivate Solution Providers to invest resources to build a proactive practice that utilizes HP storage solutions as a glue across disparate technologies.
- Pricing and Marketing Strategy Analysis- Analyse the pricing strategy and implications for the target market and buyer profile. The “small” target market translates into low deal flow posing a challenge for partners to forecast revenue timing and consistency.
- Evaluating Selling Motions – With longer and more complex sales cycles requiring executive-level buy-in. the study defined the level of partner engagement in pursuing new targets and opportunities by risk-sharing to build the joint business growth.
Services Provided
- Channel as a Service
The Solution
The Indirectly Inc. team conducted a series of one-on-one interviews with HP Storage partner executives to define key components and build a framework for constructing profitable deals with HP Storage solutions. In addition, Indirectly developed a cost analysis to outline required partner investments for building a storage services practice including ROI forecasts.
Indirectly developed online modelling tools and insights for partner demonstrations to highlight the economic benefits of reselling HP Storage as a strategic component of their portfolios.
Impact & Results
As a result of these initiatives, HP Storage achieved significant improvements in partner profitability and engagement. The HP Storage Team integrated partner feedback and input into their revenue forecasting along with adjusting partner discounts and reward incentives to optimize partner engagement in opportunities. Additionally, the partner modelling tool created by the Indirectly Team led to increased opportunity collaboration between HP Storage channel managers and its partners generating a 30% increase in deal closure rates. Finally, HP Storage shifted its partner recruitment focus from a high-volume model to a value-driven channel strategy, ensuring more growth.new, high-value partnership.