ADVERTORIAL
BT beats the channel drum
The BT Business Indirect Partner Sales channel (IPS) has been relatively quiet in recent times, but according to Martin Clarke, General Manager of Partner Sales, all that’s about to change as IPS prepares to make a big noise in the channel.
a successful year for our partners and resellers.”
Martin Clarke
out that IPS has evolved during a period of preparation and strategic alignment with the channel. “I wouldn’t say we’ve been that quiet,” noted Clarke. “We’ve been streamlining our channel and working with other parts of BT to ensure that our partners and resellers are managed by the most appropriate parts of our Group. We had a number of partners move to BT Wholesale, some to Global Services and some relationships came to an end. We’re now able to concentrate on building up the channel and investing in growth. We’ve recently recruited a new specialist sales team focused on enabling our partners to sell across the BT Retail portfolio. This, coupled with a relaunch of the Partner Learning Academy is showing a return already. So I’m looking forward to
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We’re now able to concentrate on
building up the channel and investing in growth
www.comms-dealer.com
larke counters arguments that IPS has been dormant in recent times, pointing
Clarke’s optimism is in large part attributed to ‘tremendous opportunities’ for customers to transform their businesses, drive costs down and/or enable growth, he says. “Many global clients and larger corporate customers have already deployed scale solutions and that is set to continue. But it’s especially exciting for IT services partners serving SMEs where there is an increasing level of customer confidence in the design, delivery and quality of cloud services. We expect 2012 to be the year where the industry sees exponential cloud services growth across all market segments. BT Business is in a strong position here, underpinned by our high- speed broadband, converged communications, and very flexible infrastructure.”
The commercial proposition for partners is also flexible and now rewards in a combination of upfront and annuity commission payments. This has been well received by the channel partners and can help with some financial management challenges. “There are some challenges however, not least the ongoing consolidation within the ICT industry,” explained Clarke. “More and more businesses are failing to survive and the increase in mergers and acquisitions continues. For customers it can be quite daunting to decide who to put their trust in when making investments in ICT projects.”
There is still a very challenging economic climate as we enter 2012. Businesses will need to continue to
make difficult decisions on cost management and justify capital investment programmes to deliver growth. Technology and communications often figure as key enablers in both these areas and it’s vital for BT Retail IPS to have an evolving proposition that adds value to partners solutions. “The adoption of cloud-based services will present a wealth of opportunity for the whole channel,” commented Clarke. “Probably more so now than ever before, customers demand a high quality service at competitive rates, that may be an obvious thing to say but so true. Part of our strategy is around continual service improvement, a fundamental building block to ensure the channel remains attractive for partner and resellers.”
IPS has two propositions dependent on business models. “Our main route is referral,” stated Clarke. “Partners and resellers sell BT’s products and services, on behalf of BT. To support them, they have up-front and annuity commissions, account management, product specialists, service proposition, training and use of BT trademark ‘Authorised Partner of BT’. BT contract and bill the customer and the partners are paid commission for this. We have also just launched an offering aimed at managed IT services businesses which allows partners to take a limited BT Retail portfolio and wrap into
Contact
To find out more please email Kay Leech, Transformation Manager:
ipsrecruitment@bt.com Or visit our recruitment site:
http://btbusiness.force.com/workingwithBTIPS/ IPS_Recruitment_HomePage
COMMS DEALER JANUARY 2012 39
with their own services in a managed customer offering.”
Three areas have surpassed Clarke’s expectations in 2011 and should continue into 2012/13, he predicts. First, the penetration of fibre broadband has been very strong. BT continues its aggressive roll-out of fibre enabled exchanges and partners have been quick to take this out to their client base. “It really is a fantastic lead in to sell other services,” he said. “Within the channel our broadband ARPU is very strong, among the highest across BT. Secondly we are now building a strong track record of winning lines (mainly WLR) back to BT and at the end of 2011 the channel doubled the volumes from 2010. Finally, a really strong growth area is the BT Retail data and WAN portfolio, a good proposition for partners, resellers and customers. The data portfolio continues to evolve and there will be some exciting new developments from BT Retail early in 2012.”
Clarke has opened the door to partners and resellers interested in working with BT Retail. “Talk to us. We only work with a small number of partners so you would be joining an exclusive channel,” he said. “We are interested in hearing how you can help us grow our revenues by bringing customers back to BT or generating new revenues.” n
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