After several years of dabbling in the direct sales market, HP repositioned itself as a channel-led manufacturer at this year’s annual Partner’s Conference, with plans to expand its channel business from 80 to 87% of total sales.
"There’s no doubt we’re reinventing," said CEO Dion Weisler, describing how HP had "the opportunity to transform customers, transform industries and, frankly, transform ourselves."
HP plans to power this expansion ofits channel business through the addition of new products, including a new line of A3 printers designed to be sold through Managed Print Services partners, a focus on security, and new channel-friendly tools.
These include a Presentation Builder to create bespoke customer presentation within minutes, new co-marketing tools and tools to help partners run more effective social media campaigns.
HP is also changing the way it does business with its partners, reducing quote times from days to hours and reducing the complexity of its compensation schemes, cutting back their numbers by more than 60 per cent. "It’s about making it easier for you to do business with us," said COO John Flaxman. "You guys are demanding a simple and seamless experience."
Such moves should encourage those who feel HP lost its focus before the decision to split the Printer and Personal Systems business from the Enterprise business last year.
"The channel is a more efficient model to take our product, our services and our solutions out to our customers," explained Dion in a press Q&A session. "We don’t think the PC is dead. We don’t think the printer is dead. We are building better mousetraps every day."
