Bull's Eye Awards: Turnaround of the Year - CHALLENGER

Siemens Enterprise Communications
In North America, the battle for unified communications is often painted as a clash between the titans Cisco Systems and Avaya. But in the rest of the world, Siemens Enterprise Communication is an equally worthy competitor and—in many cases—a holder of more market share. Over the past year, the company has broken from its German corporate in all but name through a joint venture with The Gore Group. After a significant overhaul of its global corporate structure, the new company—which formally goes by The SEN Group—is ready to take on the North America market and sees the channel as the path to success.

Siemens Enterprise Communications posts a number of achievements in the past year, mostly about its financial performance and strength—12 percent increase in overall sales, 12 percent increase in network infrastructure and security sales, 8 percent increase in sales to large enterprise businesses, and 25 percent reduction in operating expenses. While impressive, the company’s selection for the Channel Insider Challenger Bull’s Eye Award for Turnaround of the Year is more about the nascent moves Siemens Enterprise Communications has made to strengthen its position in the channel and positioning itself for partner-based growth in 2010.

Siemens Enterprise Communications is no stranger to the North America market or channel, but it’s hardly had a consistent effort or sustained success. That’s changing. In the past year, Siemens Enterprise Communications has created a global channel program and organization under the leadership of Denzil Samuels. The company has realigned inside sales compensation in a system of rewards for working through partners, created new bundled packages that are channel friendly, created a deal registration program to reward partners for uncovering net-new business, and crafted a new subscription-based pricing program for its hardware, software and services. Additionally, Siemens Enterprise Communications has built a solution center where partners can design, test and certify their solutions before going to market. It’s also signed distribution agreements with Synnex and WestCon to extend its reach through the channel.

Samuels and Mark Vayda, the company’s president of worldwide sales, concede that the channel program is a work in progress. We agree. However, the level of effort, the quality of the initial steps taken to bolster the channel program and partner relations, and the commitment to make the channel the preferred route to market are impressive. Siemens Enterprise Communications is definitely a company to watch in 2010, and for that reason it earns the Channel Insider Challenger Bull’s Eye Award for Turnaround of the Year.