Storage solutions and outsourcing services provider Rorke Data is employing a number of competitive strategies to arm its channel partners against the competition. In part II of this interview series with Rorke Data VP of Sales Bob Herzan, we take a look at some of these approaches.
Joshua: How are you getting your products out to market? What strategies are you using?
Bob: I think the easiest way to look at this is, Rorke itself has been supporting a channel for many years, into decades. About two years ago when Avnet had purchased Bell and Rorke, we looked at an opportunity to maybe drive more of our product line outside of our verticals. To do so, we wanted to make sure that we took the current way that we went to business and put more of a professional touch around it.
So although the vertical markets I was selling into–our channels–were very deep and wide across the globe, we wanted to increase the program for them. So that’s what we did a couple years back and then kind of reinvented in the beginning of this year, to make sure that [our channel partners] were getting the most professional program available to drive market awareness, not only in the current verticals that we had, but really outside into vertical markets that Avnet had large reach to.
Within that program, we’ve set up authorized and premier resellers and given them different levels. The premier reseller is the one that’s really focused on our entire product line of professional services and dedicated into a volume. And for that, they get some special considerations.
So, the coop [cooperative] fund’s put out there so that we can help generate more brand awareness region by region and country by country. That’s really started to take off and absolutely appreciated, I think, at a time when a lot of companies have pulled back coop-related funds and marketing because of economic reasons. We’re actually pushing it and trying to do more.
Joshua: Can you talk about some specifics around co-branded marketing activities?
Bob: It’s a tool where we can jointly represent potentially branding for not only us, but for the reseller themselves. And so those VARs [value-added resellers], especially the newer VARs that own a particular customer base or relationship, it’s important to tie their branding in with the new Rorke branding that’s coming in there.
So, the co-branding could be primarily done through documentation, if it is product spec sheets, or solution papers, white papers, things like that. We have done some co-branding in regards to product, as well, where it’s–I wouldn’t call it OEMing [original equipment manufacturing]–but they’re putting their name in conjunction with our name on the product. That’s gone over very well where they continue to have some ownership and are really dedicated to the product at that point.
Joshua: Do you have anything to help them get away from competitive pressures and stay focused on the solution?
Bob: Yeah. There are a number of documents that have been produced internally here to compete [regarding] a particular part of the solution or the overall solution. It’s one of the things I’m actually working on. … It’s kind of trying to turn the table for our partners, as well.
A particular partner will come in and he’ll say, “I’m competing against X brand. Do you have something that shows how you compete against them?” The Rorke product line is so complete … I mean, we can put together a complete solution that consists of hardware, software, commodity connectivity products, all the professional services. Most of the time when I’m competing against somebody, it’s about a particular part of the solution, not the overall solution.
So I’ve put together a document … our reseller partners … use as a training tool that, more or less, breaks down the entire Rorke portfolio from RAID [redundant array of independent disks], NAS [network-attached storage], collaborative work environments, and archiving, along with the professional services. And then, on the side of that is a check sheet that allows you to go competitor by competitor and say not how Rorke competes against the competitor, but how does that competitor compete against Rorke.
I want to turn that table where they’ve got this checklist of all the things they’ve got available from us, and then when they’re looking at that competitor with their customer, they can actually sit there and say, “Well, does the competitor do that? Nope, he doesn’t. He doesn’t do this, he doesn’t do that, but these guys do.”
So, I’m hoping that’s an easier tool for them to more or less have everything at their arsenal in one or two pages of what we can do. Versus trying to go against the competitor and trying to do a head-to-head on a particular product set, when in actuality I might have had two or three products that weren’t talked about that solve the problem.
Joshua: Are you providing only talking points to the sales and technical teams may leave behind?
Bob: Yes, because I like to get away from really getting anything documented out there that says, he said, she said. Three months go by and it’s outdated anyway.
It really becomes a worksheet: So, here’s Rorke and everything it can do with its product line, and then sit down with the customer, and you create your competitive guide on the fly. And eventually once I get it fine-tuned, I would look at making that tool an online tool for the partners, where they could go in and just basically look at checkboxes and help themselves to determine how we compete.
[ed. — DCIG delivers this type of tool for VARs, Vendors and End Users – DCIG’s Interactive Buyer’s Guide]
In part III of this interview series, VP of Sales Bob Herzan discusses some of the specific vertical markets Rorke Data serves and how the company reaches them.