make it easier
for VARs to find you
VARs actively use directories like
STORAGEsearch and the
SPARC Product Directory to
learn about new products and manufacturers. If your company makes storage or Sun
compatible products make sure your company maintains high visibility in these
publications by press releases, articles, and, or advertising. If you don't
have visibility in these established references, your task at recruiting VARs
will be much more difficult. |
pro-actively
search for VARs and Distis using our targeted shortlists
- another approach is to datamine the news stories we run when OEMs sign
deals with international VARs. Go to each of our home pages and type the "country"
you want to target into the search box (excluding the US and UK which have their
own dedicated directories). You'll be surprised how useful that can be. It's not
worth our while creating lists of VARs for most countries, but they'll still
flash up if they've been mentioned in news stories.
|
use a
specialist marketing services company
From time to time, I become
aware of companies which have done the "expand into Europe" thing for
high tech companies in the Sun or storage markets because they've appeared in
news stories I've run, or because they've contacted me to promote their clients.
Here are some for you to look at. They are all experienced and proven in this
process otherwise they wouldn't be listed here.
|
how much is
internationalisation worth?
In 2001 the US IT market was in
recession, while the UK was still growing. So the UK is now worth about 20% of
the US. Think of adding another state like California to your US domestic
revenue, and that gives you a ballpark.
Germany (an attractive market
during most of the 1990's) now has its own recession, so it's not as attractive
as it used to be. The German IT market is smaller than the UK, bu they are
comparable in size.
France is difficult for any US company to succeed
in, and should be last on your hit list. It's about #3 or #4 in size in Europe
(if you count Nordic as a single region.)
The above estimates relate to
the enterprise server and storage markets. For more precise data consult the
market research companies.
|
doing the soft shoe shuffle
A
traditional pre-web way of discovering potential VARs is to visit them at trade
shows. You can do this in person or electronically because some trade show sites
retain lists of exhibitors for months after the event has taken place.
Attendance
at a trade show filters in VARs who have invested something in
promotion. Although I think nowadays such events are really more effective as
market research forums rather than promotion. But market research by your
potential VARs is a good thing. On the other hand, you can safely filter
out most B2B VARs which you see advertising in printed magazines, because
you know they don't measure direct marketing outcomes effectively and will waste
all of your promotion budget.
|
 |
UK VARS on
STORAGEsearch.com
|
| Megabyte's young nephew
Cheaperbyte joined the sales department in a storage reseller company after
leaving college.
No one ever beat him on price. | |
| There are
many databases of VARs which you can buy on disk from market research companies.
I don't recommend using them to recruit your first VARs because it will take a
lot of resource to contact and filter out the inactive companies. (Company size
is not an indication of current business activity.) If you can't find a VAR
easily from their own promotional activities, then maybe your ideal customers
can't find them either. |
 |
More from
the editor:
Thousands of VARs today sell brands which have
been directly or indirectly influenced by my
company's 10
years activities as an IT publisher. In the early 1990's, before the web was
invented, one of our most profitable products was selling mailing lists and
databases such as our European SPARC Resller List, which in 1996 included key
contacts in more than 1,450 Sun reseller organisations in Europe. I stopped
counting the number of workstation, adapter card and storage manufacturers who
had used our channel data products in the early 1990's when we passed 100
companies. It was also obvious from talking to the many VARs who bought our
directories (which typically cost $95 a copy in those days) that their main
reasons for using directories was to source hard-to-locate products.
Manufacturers also used the directories to target synergistic suppliers for
their own brnd labelling and systems integration needs, as well as to support
their end user pre-sales desks. Those pre-web days seem so slow and leisurely
now, but they gave me good insights into other uses for our market data.
Today,
in 2002 the situation is a lot different with more time pressure for everyone.
We end of lifed our mailing lists and related databases in 1997, a year after we
switched our publications to the web. My priority now is how to grow our
readership from 0.5 million unique readers/ year upto the next level (1 million)
at a time when there are more competing web publications than ever before. So
when OEMs and distributors approach me to ask "how can I expand my European
channels in the Sun or STORAGE markets?" the approach I suggest is very
different today. Most of our readers are based in the USA anyway, but the 25%
in Europe are valuable targets for US companies seeking to expand their business
by internationalization. | |
