I was grateful for the opportunity earlier this month to catch up with Mike Gerentine, vice president of global channel and solutions marketing at IBM. I hadn’t heard much about IBM’s channel program focus in the past six to nine months, and was looking for a few highlights, which he was gracious enough to share. Here are a few things that caught my ear:

• Plan globally, execute regionally. IBM’s worldwide program framework is squarely focused on several core technology solution areas, including virtualization, green IT and data center consolidation; the vendor’s channel teams will be empowered much more at the regional level to make these initiatives theatre-specific. This isn’t really new, but it’s significant given the state of various world economies. If you’re a multinational VAR reading this blog, you’re likely to have more luck with winning market development funds in growth markets than you will in North America. For the vendor channel managers reading this, it’s another reminder that what plays well in the United States won’t necessarily apply in Brazil or Russia or India. So, let leaders in those regions set the channel agenda—just make sure it plays to your high-level program messaging.

• Reward cross-portfolio solutions liberally. Watch developments around IBM’s New Enterprise Data Center initiative. The IBM channels team developed the program WITH some key IBM Business Partners over the summer and “officially” launched it in October. It emphasizes and rewards attach-rate behavior that pulls cross-branded IBM solutions into the data center domain and plays to the huge data center transformation that is happening across enterprise and midmarket accounts. So, VARs that represent the whole shebang: IBM hardware, software and services will find themselves in the catbird seat. In fact, some IBM Business Partners may even be able to snag up to $100,000 in business develpment funds to support this IBM priority. Here are more details on the whole initiative.

• Seek loyalty. IBM’s new data center program points back to the one BIG thing that vendors REALLY need from their channel partners in a whack-o economic climate like this: LOYALTY. I’ve heard some VARs describe the current environment as a “take share” market, meaning they aren’t going to see incremental revenue so much as share shifts from accounts that MUST upgrade their infrastructure. It will be bloody. So, it’s in every vendor’s interest to make sure it is as strategic (read profitable) in the minds of their existing partners as possible. For IBM (and Hewlett-Packard for that matter), that translates into rewarding the VARs and resellers that invest in pushing as much of their entire portfolio into an account as possible. It also means keeping the process around deal registration, competitive bid resolutions, special support requests and business development as simple as possible.

What’s on your mind for 2009? To chat about your company’s channel program strategy (warning, you might show up on this blog!), contact Heather Clancy at hclancy@swotmg.com.

The Intel earnings warning yesterday was a sobering indicator that the high-tech industry is in for a pretty rough patch, one in which your team’s ability to align better with your channel partners and execute on your top priorities quickly will be paramount.

Intel is a leading indicator, generally, of the big hardware OEMs, so we’ll be watching closely to see what they say in coming weeks. A couple of the big market research firms have adjusted their IT spending forecasts. Forrester Research, as an example, reported in September that 43 percent of the close to 1,000 companies that it follows had already cut their IT budgets for 2009, while approximately 29 percent were putting new projects through a closer scrutiny (suggesting, at the very least, longer sales cycle times). Interestingly, it reported that 90 percent of companies from the entertainment, leisure and media industries were not cutting back on IT services spending.

I don’t normally post the bi-monthly CDW IT spending trend data in this blog but I figured since we’re all trying to figure out what the heck is going to happen to our businesses and our lives over the next year, that having some additional survey visibility into the minds of IT buyers would be useful. CDW looks at businesses of all sizes, PLUS the government, so they’ve got some worthwhile stats to ponder.

It should come as little surprise to you that cost management is the top priority next year for the roughly 1,058 IT decision makers that were covered in the latest CDW year-in-review poll, which was conducted in late September before things really started to look grim. About 41 percent cited this area as their No. 1 concern, compared with 32 percent for the next biggest priority, which was investment in new products and technologies. Surprisingly (and it would be interesting to see if this holds up in the next batch of data that comes in), the percentage for the latter priority was up 5 percentage points from what CDW survey respondents said LAST year about THIS year.

The only thing that I found worth noting is that managing operational costs was LESS of a priority for respondents who classified themselves as small businesses than growing market share. Only 27 percent of small businesses cited the former as a priority, compared with 36 percent who picked growing market share.

A couple of other relevant data points that I picked up.

First, the weak economic environment was cited by 42 percent of the respondents to the latest survey as the biggest obstacle to growth in 2009. This compares with 38 percent that listed it last year. What’s more interesting, however, is that LAST year, organizational changes and employment recruitment and retention were also big factors (cited by 20 percent and 24 percent of the respondents, respectively). In the last survey, however, NO other obstacle garnered more than 8 percent of the respondents. So the economy looms LARGE. It loomed LARGEST for small businesses: 52 percent of the small-business respondents said the weak economic environment was their one biggest obstacle to growth next year.

Second, aside from the other priorities that I already mentioned, workforce performance became a bigger priority for 2009 than it was in 2008: 31 percent of the respondents to the most recent survey named it as a priority, compared with 25 percent who cited it last year.

You can actually read some of the trending data in my past CDW-related posts on TechTarget. Here are some of those links:

CDW: IT spending plans relatively stable (July 11, 2008)

Seized with doubt: CDW IT Monitor reflects buyer uncertainty (May 20, 2008)

Would love to hear about any visibility you have that supports or refutes these observations.

Feel free to comment or e-mail me directly at hclancy@swotmg.com.

Despite all the lip-service your company’s senior executives might be giving channel partners as a potential saving grace in the midst of a rather bleak economic outlook, you and I both know most channel managers are probably being asked to cut back on their channel program budgets.

If not immediately, then for next year, until we have a window into an economic turnaround.

So, where should you put your shrinking dollars?

A new study commissioned by BlueRoads and SiriusDecisions might provide some high-level guidance. The company’s “Channel Survey: 2009 Priorities” suggests that lead management systems, deal registration tools and other business development initiatives focused on improving partner sales execution and effectiveness are demonstrating the most clear return on investment. Of those channel executives who said their channel program budgets favored this area, 62 percent reported an increase in revenue this year.

By contrast, investments in tactical programs to automate channel relationships, such as partner portals, produced a less tangible result among the survey base. Approximately 40 percent of the channel executives who said their channel program focus favored this area reported an increase in revenue.

More than 1,000 channel managers were included in the survey.

Among other high-level findings:

• Approximately 60 percent recognize a need to spend more on sales effectiveness next year.
• Few channel executives have systems in place to measure or monitor the effectiveness of sales leads
• Too many channel executives are focused on tactical views into pipeline or deal status, rather than addressing strategic issues such as lead and opportunity accountability, development of more sophisticated sales skills among their existing partner base.

What does this suggest for readers of this column?

In my opinion, your investments for 2009 would be well-concentrated in these three areas:

1. Arming your EXISTING partner base with sales skills development opportunities and more proactive early visibility into your company’s specific business goals for their region. I am consistently perplexed as to why you would share certain data points or skills development opportunities with your field sales teams and yet leave your channel partners in the dark until you’re looking for some short-term result. Why don’t they get the same development opportunities? Oh wait, I get it, they’re not on your payroll. No, in most cases, though, they SPEND money for the privilege of selling your product. Find the right partners in your existing base to develop, built a success profile and then look to recruit more.
2. Shoring up your partners’ marketing capabilities. By reallocating some of the money-pit development dollars you’re spending on developing a proprietary partner portal into materials they can use for real go-to-market activities, you can help partners generate demand for your products. Now is NOT the time to slash market development funds, although this may be an easy line item to go after.
3. Activities to building partner awareness within your own company at all levels of management. The channel team shouldn’t be asked to take on the task of supporting a company’s business partners on their own. In fact, if that’s the only group at your company that lives and breathes channels, then you face a serious up-hill battle. And pretty much all of your other investments are for naught.