Forging an effective sales model for hardware growth

In a recent Reseller News roundtable, Dell, distributor Simms International NZ and senior channel executives discussed an effective partnership for growth amid a difficult hardware sales climate

By Edited by Reseller News staff, Auckland | Tuesday, 18 May 2010
Marketing the brand

Amanda Sachtleben: There is a value perception with different hardware brands. How could Dell channel its marketing, and provide marketing support, to partners to assist them to co-sell?

Jon Thornhill: Any marketing support would be appreciated. Going back to your first question also, I’m quite positive about the opportunity with Dell and with Simms. To quote Paul, he said something along the lines of it is not a sprint, it is a marathon. I think it is a half-marathon in that there is an opportunity now to get out there and differentiate the offering.

Our experience has been the market has been a bit confused about what Dell has been trying to do. We are also grateful to have James on board and he has been very good to us so far. I think there is a window now and an opportunity to get out there and go and do it and make sure that we’re all on board.

To me the biggest thing is communication and in my world with distributors, they get very big very quickly and they lose touch with their customers and they stop caring about their customers and their resellers. I am sure that is not going to happen with Simms, but I really think that is the biggest advantage. The communication must be there, the support must be there and the time it takes to get things done must be as short as possible.

We don’t see Dell Direct as a competitor because we know what their space is, we know what their products are and we knew that when we came on board. We’re not going to try and compete with it. I understand that for some people, Vostro’s not in their product range. It is in ours and that’s why we’re very happy for Simms to hold that stock and to be able to deliver it just in a day or two’s time.

But we’ve got to rely on how we differentiate ourselves. I think we’re very different to everyone else in here, in that we built our business on refurbished machines, so new equipment for us is brand new really. I think together with the work that Dell does, the marketing and awareness they do and with Simms providing the right service and good pricing, we have got a good chance of making this really successful.

Amanda Sachtleben: Do buyers stay loyal to particular brands, and if so, how could Dell counter that?

Bill Hines: There is probably that loyalty to the Dell brand that I am hoping to capitalise on. It is common in New Zealand actually. People have bought HP because they’ve always bought HP or bought IBM because that’s what they’ve always done.

If you tell them there is something better out there, they don’t believe you, so obviously that is a challenge for Dell. There is a perception with a lot of businesses that Dell only sells to the home market or it is just a cheap brand. We’re probably partly to blame for that, but yes, there is a lot of brand loyalty.

Amanda Sachtleben: Do you find it is hard to show people other brands options too, Grant?

Grant Stevens: People go by what we tell them. We have a saying in our shop that we sell what we love using. So if we love using it we get excited about it. Someone came in this morning and said ‘I need a laptop’. I said ‘well you’ve got that or that, that one is $1400, that is $1100’. He chose one and said ‘I’ll have it in two hours’, because he took our advice that we don’t have it if it is not worth having.

Robert Elcombe: On a positive note, I would like to say that Dell product is very good once you’ve got it and if it goes wrong, which is rare, particularly in the business range, the service to repair it is very good once it is diagnosed. I am happy to fill the missing parts, which Dell haven’t performed well at here in New Zealand, which is the telephone support, the initial diagnostics, and that is good for me because the customer gets a win-win situation. They get good product at a good price with superb local support, which is what I provide.

Bill Hines: The next big issue really is the support. Changing or adding a new product to the range is a good way of going about things. One of the questions I have is how will we deal with the support issues surrounding Dell? If we’re selling Dell, I know what I do with this product and that product and I am like you, in as much as I restrict the brands that we sell to ones that we trust and that I trust the support services on.

Robert Elcombe: I can answer that question for you, because I’ve been doing this for a number of years. Dell provides, with all their hardware, a diagnostic CD. I’ve had years of experience and it is second to none. I know the Dell product inside out.

That is why I am keen to work my way through the initial challenges. The service is what I am buying into. It is the backup service that I am buying into as well as the product and the reputation and the brand.