Fujitsu Is Full Steam Ahead with Partner Program
New elements, including a try-and-buy evaluation unit program and a partner portal, plus a look at growing market verticals and how the company will be helping partners take advantage of the federal stimulus package.
By Cecilia Galvinalvin
With a household name and revenues of $50 billion worldwide, Fujitsu Computer Systems Corp. is a late bloomer when it comes to creating a formal channel partner program. But over the past two years, the company has been tweaking its business plan to make the channel a more significant part of its overall business strategy, according to Matt McManus, Fujitsu’s vice president of channel sales, who spoke with Executive Editor Cecilia Galvinalvin about the company’s Accelerator partner program.
Is there an upside to starting a formal channel program so recently?
McManus: For such a large company with great products and history, [we don’t have] any baggage out in the market-no channel “conflict” or complexities built into our program. Rarely do you see a company of our size having a fresh look and creating programs that are very simple, which is currently resonating with our partners.
What new elements have you added to the program?
McManus: We’re helping VARs grow their businesses with our 60-day net term GE flooring program. End users’ sales cycles are getting longer, and they’re slower to pay as well. So this is a benefit to VARs-it improves their cash flow.
We’ve also launched an evaluation and demo program for our storage products. We’ve had a lot of traction with what we call our try-and-buy or evaluation unit program. A VAR installs a unit into the end user’s site, and within 30 days [the customer] sees the ROI and TCO on the product. We’ve got about an 80 or 85 percent close rate on these units right now.
We also rolled out a lead-generation program in January. We’re testing the waters with it, but we’re basically using an outbound telemarketing group that provides various levels of leads-by vertical and geography-to our partners. Not having a ton of partners out there is a benefit, because the leads are very high quality. We reach the decision maker, they have a certain time frame to buy, and they have the budget to buy. That’s how we’re qualifying the leads.
You introduced the Fujitsu Infinity Portal as well, which offers instant access to list (MAP) pricing. What else does it feature?
McManus: The Infinity Portal combines different interfaces that we’ve had-one was deal registration and one was a quote tool, and there’s also a configuration tool that gives partners the opportunity to configure mobile and storage products for specific needs. We have a new online MDF tool as well.
So what can partners expect for the rest of the year?
McManus: In the education space, our business has grown about 80 percent year over year; healthcare has been recession proof as well, growing 20 percent year over year. So we’re doing very well in key verticals, and we’re going to be working with our partners to take advantage of the stimulus package that’s coming out. There’s $20 billion in healthcare technology spending for electronic medical records, for example, and there’s education spend for technology as well. We plan to work with our VARs to be sure we’re giving them the training and tools to take advantage of that.
