HP TO HIRE 100’s OF SALESPEOPLE …..

[Anonymous]

HP to Hire ‘Hundreds’ of Salespeople to Push Demand
Hewlett-Packard
is hiring “hundreds” of salespeople to increase demand across channels
as part of a play for market share, CEO Mark Hurd revealed June 19 in
an address to resellers at the vendor’s Americas Partners Conference in
Las Vegas.The boost to the direct sales organization, while competing
with VARs for business, would ultimately drive demand for HP’s vast
portfolio in the market and drive sales for VARs, Hurd said.”This is
not a statement about channel direction,” Hurd told the more than 1,100
resellers. “This is about demand. As we add more salespeople, we add
more demand for HP and increase the HP halo in the market. If you’re
aligned with us, you will benefit from increased opportunity.”The Palo
Alto, Calif., company will use the additional staff to plug gaps in its
coverage model on its march to greater market share, Hurd said. He
called HP’s current 4 percent share unacceptable.HP’s market share more
than doubles when the company has at least one salesperson, direct or
indirect, assigned to an account, a ratio the company won’t meet at its
current configuration, he said.While the measure is likely to ruffle
feathers in HP’s channel, typically cautious of the company’s direct
sales force that used to compete directly with its resellers, the
theory holds water, said Tiffani Bova, research director of IT channel
sales at Gartner Group, based in Sherman Oaks, Calif.”If HP is creating
demand for the product, it can only help resellers,” Bova said. “But
they have to be careful how they execute. If they don’t take the proper
steps and put in place the proper protocols, they’re only going to
multiply the problems [channel conflict and mistrust] they already
have.”In addition to renewed sales pressure, HP plans to approach the
market differently, Hurd said, controlling access points, where
customers enter the market, and building more of a solution to sell the
product.Along those lines, the company’s market-leading Imaging and
Printing Group would need to change its pedigree from a printer company
to a printing company, to take advantage of the 11 percent increase in
page printing that might not necessarily translate into an increase in
printer sales.HP plans to own more “control points in the market,”
which, he said, are the points at which customers access certain
services, such as digital photo printing kiosks and an on-demand
Web-based commercial printer.”We don’t necessarily want to be in the
kiosk business or the most omnipresent company on the Web,” Hurd said.
“But to have access to the customer now you have to control those
access points where they access the market.”The march toward greater
market share will continue to include a greater emphasis on “attach,” a
practice to attach additional items to sales-such as monitors and PCs
to a document management solution-which HP began trumpeting earlier
this year in the channel with added incentives.
Committed to the Channel
Hurd,
in his address, also reiterated the company’s commitment to the
channel.”I view the channel as a strategic advantage for HP,” he said.
“There is no way to get to buying the points on our own without your
help. There is no way to provide the solutions customers want without
your help. There is no way to provide the local knowledge and the local
presence customers need without your help.”HP’s staff, and Hurd in
particular, has been working to improve relations with channel partners
after partners experienced several years of frustration while the
vendor appeared bent on competing with them through indirect sales for
even some of the smallest accounts in the market.To exacerbate matters,
Hurd appeared to intimate last year, shortly after he took the
company’s helm, that the vendor would give preferential treatment to
partners who showed their loyalty by favoring the brand at the cost of
other vendors. The ill-timed statement frosted partners who already
were resentful of HP’s direct efforts.

[Author]

July 11, 2006 at 10:38 AM