Channel Insider literally receives dozens of press releases each week, most of them not worth reporting on. Mundane press releases are about customer wins, executive speaking engagements, commentary on news trends and routine business. Press releases are really perfunctory so vendors can say they’re doing everything they can to stay in the press.
Last week, one of these mundane press releases hit my inbox and caught my attention. Oh, it was a routine press release by a vendor announcing a run-of-the-mill customer win and product deployment. But what made it different was how the deal was won.
SonicWall (which sponsors our Secure Channel blog) proudly announced that Akorri, the Massachusetts-based developer of virtual infrastructure management software, chose its SonicWall Continuous Data Protection (CDP) 3440is and a SonicWall CDP 5040 to eliminate nightly data backups for its 25 servers.
SonicWall didn’t make the deal; the ink was signed by its partner, CPU Sales & Service of Waltham, Mass. And the reason CPU Sales & Service got the deal was because it was the preferred solution provider to the executive who oversaw the project.
“I’ve worked with [Todd Barrett, director of sales at CPU] at every job I’ve had for the last 10 years. I’m at the point where if Todd recommends a product, I know he’s going to be diligent,” said Fred McHugh, IT manager at Akorri, in the press release. “I told Todd when I took this job that I just couldn’t do the whole tape library route. I didn’t have the time. Tapes are unreliable and you run into issues with tape failure, backup windows, inadequate technology and management is a nightmare. He showed me SonicWall CDP, and for a small business it was right in the wheelhouse of what I needed to do.” As a result of Barrett’s recommendation, Akorri got the backup solution it needed for its infrastructure and software development operations. The product’s initial success and the solution provider’s performance in the deployment mean Akorri is going to standardize on SonicWall CDP.
“I’m pretty much committed to this model right now. If we have growth and I have to add another seven servers and needed two more terabytes of backup space, I’d have no problem adding another SonicWall CDP 5040,” McHugh said.
We–as an industry–often talk about solution providers and VARs as “trusted advisers,” but don’t always see examples of what that means in practice. In an era when many assume that price and ROI trump all other considerations, it’s good to see that trusted relationships, consistent quality of service and solid technology guidance carry value in the eyes of customers and return value to solution providers.