Working with Channel Partners to create value

Value added distribution means being the resource that the reseller can call on at any time, it means being loyal to the reseller and its business aims and it means buying into the resellers objectives and supporting them all the way.

Mark Shane, Sales and Marketing Director of ICON says than ICON does all this for its partners every day of the week.  These are not hollow words says Mark, for example, we recently worked with Affinity Communication Systems to develop and win a major retail bid.

The retail client contacted Affinity with a requirement to upgrade its telecoms infrastructure and provide a voice mobility solution. The existing mobility solution was a legacy OEM analogue implementation of a Polycom KIRK solution that had served well but needed modernising to ensure interoperability with the proposed Splicecom Maximiser on a VoIP network.  One of the criteria that Affinity had to work with was a fixed budget set by the retailer.  Often a first reaction of many resellers is to reduce the margin on the project to meet their client’s budget target.  ICON was able to put together a system architecture and handset combination that delivered the clients requirements, met its budget aims, and maintained Affinity’s margin.  During the sales process ICON sent both sales and technical people to site to ensure the opportunity was well executed and understood by the partner and their customer.

This is how good value added distribution works to everyone’s benefit.  When practiced fully and with conviction value added distribution results in a win-win scenario for the client, the reseller partner, in this case Affinity, and ICON.

Affinity won the business because with ICON’s support it was able to address the three key requirements of any deal -

• the right commercial solution,
• the right technical solution, and
• the right equipment.  

With ICON adding value, Affinity put forward a business case for migration to VoIP showing how the client would benefit, proposed a minimum cost system architecture that provided the performance the client required, and presented a range of professional Polycom KIRK handsets to choose from.