A Message from the Core Strategies Team

The Core Team

I'm sure you've already heard plenty about the departure of Carly Fiorina from Hewlett-Packard and, as I write this, her successor has not been named. It's hard to believe that a company like HP did not have a succession plan in place. The proverbial writing had been on the wall for many months and we can all only hope that the company moves quickly to find a leader that can make sense of a strategy that simply did not work. Hopefully, HP will look to the printer division which has been its most profitable and channel friendly business for many years. HP is too important to the Channel to fail and they need to get it right this time!

One of the people suggested as the new leader has been Jack Welsh the former chairman and CEO of General Electric. Certainly Jack has done it all and it would be a huge win for HP to get him. Jack certainly has what it takes and although his experience with the channel has been questioned, he is the kind of guy who would be able to understand it, create a strategy and execute it quickly.

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On March 5-9, over 250 resellers and 100 vendors converged on New Orleans for the CMP Solution Provider XChange. Core Strategies and several of our clients attended the conference and had an opportunity to interact and discuss the prevailing channel trends for 2005.

On Sunday, VARBusiness Senior Editor T.C. Doyle and Toni Clayton-Hine, managing director of CMP's Institute for Partner Development (IPED), showcased new thoughts to consider when bringing a new technology partner into your business.

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Deal registration programs have recently shifted from a channel program differentiator to a "must-have". Core Strategies' Partner, BlueRoads Corporation, has recently released a Deal Registration Module for its leading Channel Management Software Suite that—like its powerful Lead Management module—was built for the channel from the ground up. This BlueRoads white paper introduces seven best practices in channel deal registration that are essential to the success of any deal registration program. Companies implementing these seven best practices quickly see significant increases in both the number of registered deals and related revenue through the channel.

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In her February CRN article, Charlene O'Hanlon asks the intriguing question: "What do physicians and solution providers have in common?" The answer: "They're both making a lot of money in healthcare."

While your company may or may not be able to leverage the success of healthcare the importance of delivering channel-ready solutions that have a vertical focus is a key focus for 2005—the ability to deliver these solutions will be a major factor in your success.

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At Core Strategies we talk quite a bit about measurement, metrics and ROI—any marketing program worth doing is worth measuring. In other words, every effective marketing program, workshop or activity should have defined metrics attached. Without defined goals and metrics, you will never know if your activities are successful and whether the money you invested created revenue. Six Sigma methods and processes can play a key role in defining ROI.

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