Hurd on the Channel Street - Hard to Do Business With?
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But part of the HP loyalty equation, Hurd admitted, is that even after
eliminating three layers of management over the past two years, the company has
not become substantially easier to do business with when it comes to ordering
products and getting them delivered on time. According to Hurd, this issue
continues to be the biggest source of complaint from customers and channel
partners alike. And Dell has seized on this issue in its recent campaign to
convert solution providers to its camp.
Industry analysts attribute much of the blame for HP's apparent lack on
progress on this issue to a major overhaul of HP's IT infrastructure. That overhaul,
which Hurd said is about halfway done, has made it difficult to change channel
business processes, thereby leaving solution providers to contend with many of
the same Byzantine processes that have been a hallmark of HP's multiple product
divisions approach to the market for years.
Who are the top 5 HP channel execs you should know? Find out here.
Hurd said he is personally willing to help solution providers sell
additional HP products by spending more time in front of customers with any
solution provider that is opening new market segments for HP. But he quickly
added that the company does not have large amounts of money available to
generate demand on behalf of solution providers. Instead, HP is looking to
partners to generate demand on behalf of HP, particularly in the SMB market,
while HP concentrates its own sales teams on global accounts.
"We need more coverage, but I don't think that necessarily means we
need more partners," Hurd told the attendees. "We see partners as an
extension of HP, and for us the
U.S.
is going to be a key focus."
Of course, that may be the real crux of the channel problem going forward
for HP. As HP continues to struggle in the corporate computing market, solution
providers will look elsewhere to grow their own business regardless of what HP
is doing. And as this trend continues to develop, the real question solution
providers will have to ask themselves is whether they really see themselves as
an extension of HP as hardware infrastructure sales continue to decline in the
face of massive technological change and economic uncertainty.
Hewlett-Packard 
