Tech Data Program Targets SMBs with Financing, Sales Support, Services

Distributor Tech Data (NASDAQ: TECD) has kicked off an initiative specific to SMB-focused resellers for special sales support, services and financing, streamlined and delivered under a new umbrella called TDPrioritySMB.

Tech Data, which announced the program at its annual Vendor Summit last week in Orlando, Fla., also is extending a credit uplift for certain SMB resellers, upping credit terms on Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HPQ) products to 60 days and granting a special 1 percent discount on web orders through the remainder of October. The distributor said that some 1,700 channel partners qualified for a credit line increase, amounting to about $25 million in financing.

“By gathering feedback from our SMB resellers, both directly and through a third-party focus group, we have designed TDPrioritySMB to be an extension of our SMB resellers’ value proposition,” said Greg Banning, Tech Data SMB sales vice president.

The basis of the TDPrioritySMB program is to provide a single entryway for vendors and, correspondingly, channel partners to reach SMB end customers. At its heart, the program, available to all Tech Data SMB resellers, is a bricks and mortar approach to SMB selling, in that it backs channel partners with the key components to successful selling — sales support, services and financing:

“We understand the importance of credit and the flexibility our SMB resellers need to finance their purchases and increase their purchasing power,” said Scott Tillesen, vice president, U.S. Credit Services.

Meanwhile, at the Vendor Summit, Tech Data named its vendors of the year, presenting the SMB award to Lenovo, also recognizing Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO), VMware (NYSE: VMW) and Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) among others. You can look here for the full list of awards.