EMC to Leverage Big Data to Target Channel Marketing Dollars

With the rise of big data analytics the way IT vendors approach sales is about to go through a major transformation. Case in point is EMC (EMC), which is in the process of aligning its channel marketing and sales enablement efforts in a way that will be much more targeted than ever before.

According to Anna Dorcey, senior director of AMS Partner Marketing at EMC, EMC partners in the coming will see channel marketing efforts that are specifically targeted as individual accounts. Leveraging the investments the company has been making in big data analytics, Dorcey said the goal is to determine not only what products and services an individual customer is likely to buy next, but also who in that organizations is most likely to either influence, make or sign off on those decisions.

Armed with that information, EMC will then allocate channel marketing dollars to the partners that are best aligned with the EMC sales team to convert those opportunities into actual sales, said Dorcey.

While EMC is among the furthest along in terms of leveraging big data analytics in the channel, it won’t be too long before every major vendor is heading down the same path. While it may be a while before big data analytics can be applied against the entire small-to-medium (SMB) category, it’s clear that as far as large accounts are concerned vendors intend to leverage big data analytics to more tightly align channel partners with their internal sales staffs. In fact, the goal is nothing less than to both uncover and then lock up sales opportunities long before any actual request for proposal actually gets generated.

EMC has been quietly pursuing this new approach to channel marketing and sales since revamping its channel program last year. As part of that effort EMC has been leveraging the investments it has made in platforms such as Hadoop and massively parallel processing databases to create a more targeted approach to sales and marketing that it will expose more broadly to partners in 2015.

There’s no doubt that vendors that have made similar investments in big data analytics will be piloting similar initiatives in 2015. For channel partners being aligned with vendors that have such capabilities are likely to prove critical. While there’s no substitute for the salesperson with the great relationship with the customer, having insight into what a specific customer is most likely to do next is increasingly going to be nothing short of priceless.