HP Mounts 9,000 Midmarket Account Mapping Offensive With Partners
By Steven Burke, ChannelWeb
Feb. 4th, 2010
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Marc Sarazin, executive vice president, sales and marketing for AdvizeX Technologies, one of HP (NYSE:HPQ)'s top 20 partners headquartered in Independence, Ohio, said his team has been mapped into 500 net new accounts.

Sarazin said his goal is to grow sales 25 percent this year. That's not unusual for AdvizeX. The company has over the last three years a compound annual growth rate of 27 percent for its HP business.

Key to AdvizeX's success is a dedicated net new account teams that focuses only on winning new business in the midmarket. That net new account sales team is separate from AdvizeX's traditional sales reps focused on maintaining business with established accounts.

"I have a sales force that is just dedicated to hunting new business in this segment," said Sarazin. "When HP came to market with this model we were very excited because this is the way we have been going to market for the last several years. It is a perfect synergy as it relates to our company."

Sarazin said he has made significant investments to go to market with the new HP sales model hiring "additional account executives to make sure we have the right coverage and then making investments in demand creation."

"This is a lot different than what some of HP's competitors are doing which is throwing all these accounts over the fence to the channel with no sales rep involvement," said Sarazin. "HP is going the extra mile embracing the channel and going the extra mile working side-by-side with us to deliver our joint value proposition to the customer."

Sarazin, who been in the IT sales business for 30 years, said the HP plan represents an "unprecedented level of (sales) alignment and collaboration. What HP is doing is a significant differentiator versus what IBM, Dell and others are doing in the market."

The new sales model follows a dramatic sales reorganization last year that put HP's enterprise server, storage and networking channel, operations, product team and sales reps all under a single organization led by new HP ESSN Senior Vice President Randy Seidl.

Rauch, for his part, calls the restructuring which was driven by ESSN Executive Vice President David Donatelli a "legendary sales transformation." Donatelli and Seidl, who both worked together at EMC (NYSE:EMC), known for its super-aggressive direct sales operation, have brought what partners say is a more engaged sales culture sharply focused on sales growth.

Seidl, who joined HP last October, for example, canceled the two week holiday for some U.S. sales staff. That allowed HP partner STA to close a $250,000 deal on Christmas eve at 5:45 p.m. with the 11th hour help of Hooper and the Emerging Growth account team, said Palmer.

"The HP management team is absolutely focused on getting deals done," Palmer said. "That $250,000 deal was a net new account win against IBM and Dell. I would not have won that deal had HP shut down (for the holiday). That is energy and empowerment that we have never seen before. HP's entire management team cares about selling and getting stuff done and they have aligned under Seidl who owns the whole P&L (profit and loss balance sheet responsibility). There is no more infighting. Seidl makes a decision and it is done."

John Convery, executive vice president of vendor relations and marketing at Denali Advanced Integration, a Redmond, Wash.-based HP partner, said the call to action as set by Seidl is "customer calls, customer calls, customer calls." He sees the HP field sales team engaging partner sales teams like never before with a "full court press" of sales resources.

"It's a battle plan like no other I've experienced," says Convery, who expects a record 15 percent sales growth across the HP portfolio for Denali this year. "It's an exciting time."

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