By Varun Aggarwal
A late entrant in the channel space, Fujitsu is moving aggressively to build its partner network and increase its share of channel business. The company is keen on developing a select partner network that can sell its entire portfolio of products.
“Our aim is to have all the Fujitsu Select partners sell the entire product portfolio. This will ensure that the customer gets a one-stop-shop. It will also help the partner to build a strong rapport with the customer,” said P Raghuraman, General Manager, Channel and Volume Business, Fujitsu India.
The company has been investing heavily in partner training. “We have a 5-day training program for pre-sales reps because we feel that these reps need to completely understand the product before they go out and try to sell it. We have conducted three to five training sessions for each of our Select partners in the last six months,” Raghuraman said.
The company had its first round of Fujitsu Connect events with select channel partners in September in seven cities. The second round of training has started, and five cities have already been covered.
Raghuraman explained the company’s channel strategy. “Our aim is to have select partners, unlike other companies which have too many partners going after the same business. Our channel policies are geared toward ensuring higher partner profitability and fewer conflicts.”
The company is also offering a tool called System Architect, which is a guide to all Fujitsu products and is refreshed every month. “The tool allows partners to customize and configure the product the way they want,” Raghuraman stated. “We can even configure one server for build-to-order. The same configuration file generated by the system can be converted for quotation, sent for SPC, and submitted for deal registration.”
According to Raghuraman, the company is investing heavily in building post-sales support. “Today, Fujitsu owns the support. There’s a call center number and all the first-level calls are handled by us. We have post-sales presence in 42 cities, plus spares-stocking warehouses in tier-1 cities. We realize that the best way to delight our customers is to over-deliver on services.”
Fujitsu currently has four national SIs (Wipro, Tata Elxsi, CMS and Accel) and about 50 regional SIs. For the run rate products—including laptops, TFT monitors and entry-level workstations—Fujitsu has signed up with 200 partners.
“We’re seeing good traction for our enterprise-class LifeBook laptops,” Raghuraman informed. “These notebooks are very sturdy and hardly ever fail. We feel that many business buyers will go in for these notebooks because they realize the importance of product quality, a low failure rate, and higher battery life.”
The company is about to launch six new 3G-enabled LifeBooks. |