Commercial UPS
APC retains crown
The commercial UPS category includes online products from 2 kVA onward. APC retained its Channel Champions crown while Emerson maintained its second position followed by Numeric.
APC
APC polled the most votes in the category indicating that it enjoys the widest and most-even channel penetration across different regions and cities. With a strong set of sub-distributors, APC also has the widest ex-stock availability, and its under-10 kVA products are easily available locally. In higher-end UPS though, the company has a delivery lead-time of 3-7 days.
APC is the most recognized UPS brand in the commercial segment, and hence easy to sell. Over the past 12 months the company has been aggressive with its pricing, especially in the lower-end online UPS segment. It also bolstered its 20 kVA and above portfolio.
In 2009, APC significantly improved its channel engagement policies which helped it address the negative sentiments and perceptions prevailing in the market since 2007 following its acquisition by Schneider. Through its named-accounts policy introduced in early 2009, APC has to a large extent managed to address partner issues pertaining to direct selling to large accounts.
Overall, APC was rated high on channel marketing and training.
The company also has a good deal-registration mechanism, and is regular in providing leads to its authorized partners.
However, respondents ranked APC the lowest on the profitability parameter. Moreover, many said that the company needs to review its policy to allow authorized service partners to also sell. Respondents recommended that APC should have neutral service providers.
In addition, the company needs to improve its pre-sales support which was judged second to Emerson by solutions providers. Many partners selling under DGS&D contracts also complained that APC wasn’t as aggressive as Numeric in pursuing government tenders.
Emerson
Emerson received more votes than Numeric, and the company has considerably improved its distribution coverage in class B cities. However, Emerson continues to lack market penetration in class C cities. The company polled 65 percent votes from class A cities; the rest came from class B.
While Emerson has improved its ex-stock availability of below-6 kVA products, both its tier-1 (network solution partners, or NSPs) and tier-2 partners complained of longer than expected delivery lead-times for its higher-end products.
While overall Emerson’s brand-pull is lower than APC’s, it enjoys good customer preference in the mid-end to high-end enterprise segment, where it is perceived to have better performance features, and is regarded as more reliable than APC.
Emerson also leaves more profits on the table for partners than APC. While respondents rated Emerson’s pre-sales support as very good, they gave a thumbs-down to the company’s customer and channel marketing activities.
As in the case of APC, Emerson doesn’t have a neutral service provider policy; this puts the pure sales partners at a disadvantage. While the company’s warranty response was rated better than APC’s in class A cities with a faster call-to-resolution time, in smaller cities it scored lower.
Where Emerson needs to improve very much is channel policy and engagement where it scored lower than its peers. A consistent complaint from even their NSPs is the delay in the refund of guarantee money for MODVAT billing and over-riding commission. Some of these partners, who are also service partners, complained of delays in receiving incentives related to post-sales support.
A few respondents also opined that local managers are reactive, and only engage with partners when a deal is struck. Most respondents said that Emerson needs to improve its back-end systems to streamline its market response time.
Numeric
Numeric’s channel engagement seems largely focused on the south and west, where it polled more than 90 percent votes; in these regions it seems to enjoy a stronger channel association in class B and C cities.
Numeric is the most price-competitive, and in the under-10 kVA range it gives both APC and Emerson a run for their money in price-performance. However, beyond that it is perceived to be lower on performance compared to Emerson and APC, and lacks customer preference. The company also doesn’t have a data center solutions portfolio.
A major complaint from Numeric partners is with regards to direct selling; a few partners said that Numeric sold directly into their large customer accounts.
Where Numeric scores high compared to both its peers is on partner profitability and post-sales support. Many respondents said that they align with Numeric on large multi-locational deals (mostly in government and BFSI sectors) because it provides better margins and has a strong network of its own field engineers even in remote locations; this ensures faster installation and resolution of warranty complaints.
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