Tandberg Data Caters to VARs and Customers
Programs that include boot camps, deal registration, and lead sharing help VARs satisfy their clients and their own bottom lines.
By Cecilia Galvinalvin
The SMB market is Tandberg Data’s “sweet spot,” and the segment the Boulder, Colo.-based data protection company plans to grow. To make that happen, the channel-exclusive company is looking to its resellers, with programs designed to help them satisfy their clients and their own bottom lines.
“We want to make life easier for our SMB VARs,” says Ken Juntunen, director of sales for Tandberg Data. Tandberg uses a “boot camp” series of training sessions to teach its resellers’ sales staff about the company’s products and how to sell them, and its in-house pre-sales engineer is available to go onsite with VARs and talk to their end-user customers to find the best solution for their needs.
A deal registration process speaks directly to the bottom line. “We will not take deals direct,” says Juntunen. “Once VARs find out they can trust us to work with their customers, they are very comfortable doing so. They can work on other projects while we finish up the loose ends.”
VARs that register their deals online receive additional margins that can be anywhere from 10 to 20 percent, based on the opportunity. Tandberg also offers lead sharing, and has one lead-generation activity per quarter-for example, a virtual trade show. Leads are broken out into categories, with “A” leads representing people who are going to buy in the next month. “We will pass those along to our partners,” says Juntunen.
The company also has an MDF tooland a customized incentive program for some of its strategic partners. A dedicated account manager focuses on this group, which Juntunen characterizes as VARs that lead with its products. “We treat them with kid gloves,” he says, sending them to the head of the line for in-house tech support, for example, or working with them on marketing materials when they hit a certain threshold. “We will even write marketing materials for them so they can distribute them to their own customer base.”
