Customer Relationships: A VAR’s Most Valuable Investment

Going over the news of the last week or so I found a plethora of items I could wax poetically about and drill down to what it means to the channel. To start, there were Dell’s announcements to buy Make Technologies and Wyse Technology, further bolstering the company’s cloud and services capabilities, which has the potential to pinch its channel goodwill.

Other possible contenders include the looming threat of RIM riding off into the sunset like Shane did, with no one really certain if it is alive or dead and potentially forcing solution providers to be the mop men for IT departments that have standardized and integrated the mobile platform for their clients. And, of course, there is the Facebook-proposed acquisition of Instagram and whether that deal might impact the channel down the line as more organizations throw money at social networking agendas with no real revenue strategies in place.

I could choose any of these newsworthy topics, which were so well-covered, and spin a channel angle for your reading pleasure, but something happened in my life this week that caught me off-guard. Plus, I want to use this space for more than just news commentary but also for business and life insights.

Reflecting On Tragic News

On April 8, 2012, the mother of my longtime business partner and closest friend passed away suddenly. Her memorial service was packed — within 24 hours of her passing, family, friends, business associates and her clients (yes, clients) flew in from Florida, Texas and even Hawaii just to pay their respects. The rabbi even commented that he never saw so many cars at a graveside ceremony before.

Why? She was a modest woman and dedicated wife, mother and grandmother. She was an insurance agent her entire professional life, which is not exactly a glamorous profession. So what was the reason for the outpouring of respect? She took the time to get to know people and invest in their lives, whether she knew them personally or professionally. She didn’t represent the biggest insurance company out there or the cheapest. She had lifelong clients because she nurtured these relationships, whether they were a large commercial property owner or a consumer just needing car insurance.

To her, it always was more than just business — it was personal.

This got me thinking of the channel and the many solution providers I know well, why they stay with certain vendors and why their customers continue to do business with them. The biggest value a solution provider offers to its customers is its relationship and investment in their business. The stronger the relationship, the more they are entrenched in their customer’s operations.

This is something some IT vendors will never understand. Cookie-cutter and lowest-price-guaranteed programs will only get them so far in the channel and simply buy them temporary share. They will never build a longstanding business that way. That is why 80 percent of any given vendor’s products and services and sold by merely 20 percent of its channel partners. The vendors never fully address the needs of the remaining 80 percent of their partners, which may be more intricate but also hold the most potential for growth.

There is no argument the reseller channel has evolved over the past 20-plus years that I have been covering it — from a hardware-centric and break-fix model to networking and infrastructure services to managed and hosted solutions. What hasn’t changed and never will, however, is that fundamental truth: relationships still drive business.

Rest in peace, Gloria Biener. You could have taught IT vendors a thing or two about nurturing business relationships.

Next week we will dive into what Windows 8 means. Or maybe not.

Knock em alive!