DNA Connect co-founder and executive director, Munsoor Khan
DNA Connect and Huawei Australia used the vendor's ICT Roadshow to lay out their brand new Channel strategies to help boost the company's still nascent presence in the market.
DNA Connect was recently revealed as Huawei’s exclusive distributor in Australia, a coup for the local value added distributor (VAD) which will benefit from the Chinese giant's new channel sales programme.
Co-founder and executive director of DNA Connect, Munsoor Khan, told attendees that DNA’s has always been fast growth vendor focused, and that DNA has prided itself on its strong technical expertise. Huawei was looking for something different from the traditional distributor models, and the synergies between the two organisations made for “a very obvious fit.”
“Huawei’s enterprise business group is going to see explosive growth over the next couple of years,” he said.
Huawei’s focus on innovation – which includes 70,000 people worldwide working in R&D – means that Khan believes that the company can’t help but be successful.
“Things will always happen with that much resource driven innovation.”
Huawei Australia’s Channel manager, Mark Rook, said the process of matching DNA’s and Huawei’s objectives in the marketplace had been a 12 month long negotiation period.
“There’s been a lot of due diligence, but we’re well and truly married now,” said Rook.
“Today is really about a soft launch of Huawei’s ChannelRoad programme. Huawei remains 100 per cent Channel focused. Huawei has no direct sales force.”
Huawei’s ChannelRoad program will see some new initiatives which Rook believes are unique. They see the company focusing on a ‘Simple, focused and consistent’ approach to the Channel, to avoid confusion.
Firstly, Market Development Funding (MDF) will be 100 per cent provided by Huawei – resellers don’t need to do a 50/50 split or any other arrangements.
There will be no sales commitment targets attached to its rebate program. Instead, Huawei is looking at awarding rewards for registrations.
Salespeople will be rewarded $100 for each registration they get on the books, and $1000 for each deal they close, as long as they bring the opportunities to Huawei to assist, and provide the best commercial terms possible.
“This is not intel to gazump the retailer. Remember, we have no direct sales force,” Rook said.
There will also be performance incentives, but Rook made it clear that the program is designed to move away from “selling to geeks” and rewarding non-sales people too. All staff training will be provided free of charge.
“We think that resellers’ staff putting in their own time and effort is payment enough.”
Huawei’s new demo program means that resellers don’t have to stump up cash to get demo kit, it will be supplied free of charge. For those that want to set up inhouse demo showcases, Huawei will sell its equipment at 90 per cent off wholesale.
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DNA Connect will push its three Channel programs. Knowledge Connect, will focus on enablement – such as through webinars, seminars and one-to-one sessions, including flexible certification courses.
TechConnect will focus on DNA Connect helping partners to present on their behalf, including helping with the provision of demo equipment and Proof-Of-Concept (POC) demonstrations. In the last year alone Khan boasted that the company had provided 258 demos on behalf of its resellers.
The final piece of DNA Connect’s offering, CustomerConnect, focuses on best practice programmes and agency matching.
“We sell technically and want to help you generate your own sales leads,” Khan said.
Huawei already has 500 employees in Australia, and is the first Huawei territory to have a local board of directors that don’t have to report to China, something Khan believes will be key for the market.
“We want to build a revenue ready channel,” he said.
“We want to help our partners achieve their growth objectives, and clearly articulate the Huawei value proposition.”
