AVG Technologies N.V. has added EarthBend LLC, of Sioux Falls, S.D., to its roster of preferred North American distributors, the most recent step in the security and IT management vendor’s continuing rollout of a new global distribution strategy.
Under terms of the agreement, EarthBend will offer AVG’s business security and managed services software to its customer base of U.S. and Canadian solution providers.
“They are very focused on consultative selling,” says Fred Gerritse (pictured), general manager of AVG’s business sales and channel organization. EarthBend’s support capabilities, security expertise, and knowledge of the SMB market were additional factors in AVG’s decision to add them to its distributor lineup, he notes.
Today’s announcement is the latest in a series of distributor agreements AVG has inked in recent months as it seeks to revamp and rationalize its worldwide distribution model.
“We had a couple of distributors worldwide, but the whole structure and the go-to-market strategy was not very well defined,” Gerritse says.
Under the new model, AVG makes one major supplier and a limited set of smaller, more specialized ones its preferred distribution partners in specific geographies. In the U.S., for example, Ingram Micro Inc. is the preferred broad-line distributor and EarthBend is now one of the specialists. ADN Distribution GmbH, ASBISc Enterprises Plc., and Infinigate Holding AG are recent additions to AVG’s collection of specialized distributors on the European continent, and CMS Distribution now serves AVG resellers in the U.K. and Ireland.
The goal of the new strategy is to make AVG easier to do business with for its partners by offering them a short, regionally-defined list of go-to distributors with in-depth knowledge of AVG products and end user technology requirements, especially regarding security. Resellers also retain the option of purchasing directly from AVG if they choose.
“It gives them more flexibility,” says Gerritse, who predicts that partners will usually buy from distributors, as most of them have existing relationships and credit lines with one or more of the companies on AVG’s list.
AVG is investing heavily in co-marketing with those companies, Gerritse adds, in an effort to generate increased demand for AVG solutions.
“The marketing budget for this year is substantially higher than last year,” he says. “We’ve added a lot of new people to the team.”
Their efforts are paying off, he continues, noting that his group has recorded steady month-over-month revenue growth this year.
That’s a welcome development for AVG, which has been thriving generally but struggling in the SMB segment. Gerritse was brought on board last November to turn that trend around. Streamlining his organization’s sales and marketing processes, helping resellers cultivate deeper, more consultative relationships with their customers, and becoming a simpler vendor for those resellers to work with are among the core elements of his strategy for accomplishing that goal.
Gerritse points to both the new distribution model and the latest edition of AVG’s flagship RMM solution, Managed Workplace 10, as examples of how the company is becoming easier to partner with. The new Managed Workplace release features a more user-friendly interface and a host of new automated customer onboarding and management capabilities.
“It really simplifies the way you deploy a remote management and monitoring platform,” Gerritse says, observing that Managed Workplace sales are up sharply as a result.
“We are growing double digits,” he says.
