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Pre-split HP flops out plan to keep its sales pecker up

Partner Navigator gives channel gros fromages funded troubleshooters

HP will parachute funded staff into its largest global channel customers to minimise disruption and ensure it maintains market share as the business is carved into two.

Print and PC operations will be hived off to create HP Inc and the remainder of the company, including the new Aruba buy, will form Hewlett Packard Enterprise.

This poses something of a challenge for HP, which clearly wants to maintain some consistency and predictability for channel partners and its end user customers. The Partner Navigator programme is designed to help in this respect.

The programme will be unveiled at HP’s annual Global Partner Conference in Vegas, and is designed to make sure execs and sales people at the 200 biggest partners remain engaged.

The channel businesses will be given an HP employee to act as the eyes and ears on the sale floor, and provide a single point of contact.

Third party resellers account for roughly 70 to 75 per cent of HP’s global revenues, so spotting any rifts caused by the break-up sooner rather than later is vital to keep the wheels of commerce rolling.

But with 160,000 channel partners worldwide, HP is also expected to provide tools and services for the wider reseller base during the split, details of which are expected at GPC.

CEO Meg Whitman has previously stated the break-up will complete by 1 November, in time for HP’s new fiscal year. The management team at the global level are in place, and more recently the EMEA team was revealed by us.

Some of the benefits of breaking apart include each company gaining more autonomy to invest in markets, acquisitions or restructuring as they see fit.

Yet the negatives include the division of strategic assets, and potential confusion or uncertainty among channel and end customers alike. ®

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