Vendor management is all about relationships. The most successful solution providers engage with vendors whose strengths, needs, resources and programs align most closely with their competencies and business requirements — and then devote significant resources to relationship management.

“Manufacturers are trying to get their brands into the marketplace, and solution providers are trying to understand the simplest and most effective way to go to market that will deliver the most profits,” says Kirk Robinson, vice president of channel marketing at Ingram Micro North America. “They try to meet in the middle.”

There’s much riding on getting this right. According to Robinson, some vendors are attuned to partner needs and some miss them by a mile.

For most solution providers, vendor management begins with the customer. Whether your company targets small, midsize or enterprise businesses, you first need to discover their needs and address them with the right technology solutions.

Vendor management is more than a technical endeavor, however. The ultimate goal is to create a win-win relationship: In return for actively supporting a vendor’s technology, program and priorities, your company receives special treatment, such as extra marketing resources, stellar technical support and precious referrals to prospects. By being a team player, you become a go-to partner.

“Go-to partners can increase their business reach without added infrastructure costs,” says Jim Manley, vice president, VAR sales, Ingram Micro North America. “What better way to build credibility than to walk into a customer’s door accompanied by a Cisco, HP, IBM or Microsoft?”

Establishing a win-win relationship takes commitment, careful planning, focused execution and the right distribution partner. It also requires a personal touch. While vendor programs specify formal benefits, there’s considerable wriggle room that becomes clear when you get to know your vendor contacts.

“Smart vendor relationships are a two-way street, where both vendor and partner personnel reach out with a genuine desire to understand one another’s goals and priorities,” says Margo Day, vice president, Small and Midmarket Solutions and Partners, at Microsoft. “It’s the basis for a foundation of trust that moves the relationship forward.”

We will see this dynamic play out in the three solution providers profiled here. Ranging in revenues from $2 million to $80 million, their companies are different, but each has improved its business prospects through savvy vendor relationship management.

Northwest Computer Support:
"We win together, we lose together."
After a low in 2001 when it lost 40 percent of sales, Northwest Computer Support has racked up 24 consecutive quarters of revenue growth, and in 2007 will bring in more than $10 million. No single factor accounts for the resurgence of the SMB-oriented solution provider, but smart vendor relationship management has helped.

Northwest has grown by working closely with vendors in security, messaging and mobility practices. It has shown a willingness to invest in strategic vendor initiatives, doing testing and early deployments of new products such as Microsoft Windows Vista, Exchange 2007 and now Windows Server 2008. It has been successful at filling seats with prospects at vendor marketing events. All of this has earned a measure of gratitude from the vendor community, as well as valuable client referrals and other bottom-line benefits.

Northwest’s major vendors are Hewlett-Packard,Microsoft and Symantec, all Gold-certified, and WatchGuard, Expertcertified. “Our strategy in choosing vendors is not to have seven firewall vendors, for instance, but to pick one and become an expert,” says Tom Rash, president.“We invest pretty deeply in our lead vendors, because we focus on the value of our expertise in making solutions work.”

Deep investments are one way to get a vendor’s attention, which ties in nicely with Northwest’s partnership philosophy: The more you give, the more you are likely to get. “We want to be our vendors’ go-to partner for whatever we’re partnering with, a partner they trust to place any leads they have, an enthusiastic partner for new products and a willing resource when they need case studies,” says Rash. “Being a good partner means learning what’s important to the vendors and investing in that.”

You first have to get on the radar screen, of course, which means assigning a top executive to handle vendor relationship management.At Northwest, that person is president Rash. One key to success, he says, is perseverance in championing your company at every level in the vendor organization.“They say they want partners,” Rash quips, “but you have to work really hard to get their attention.”

From there, it pays to engage with your lead vendors in every way possible, such as attending quarterly partner meetings, participating in webinars,working together on joint marketing and alerting them to customer wins. It also doesn’t hurt to provide feedback on what’s working and what’s not in vendor programs.“Being a good partner means giving useful feedback so they can be successful,” says Rash.

As an example of this process in action, Rash works closely with his area sales manger and area general manager at Microsoft. These relationships aren’t built on social interactions, but on “working collaboratively to expose opportunities that will benefit Northwest and Microsoft,” says Microsoft’s Day.“Because we understand one another’s priorities,we are each in position to help the other achieve their goals. It’s a powerful way to do business.”

Then there’s the loyalty factor. “If a partner such as HP brings us to the dance, and the customer likes us but decides to go with another solution,we would not sell the other solution,” says Rash. “We win together; we lose together.”

Inacom Information Systems:
A Bridge Between Clients and Vendors
Inacom Information Systems works at the high end of systems integration.With $80 million in annual revenues from solution sales to midsize and enterprise clients, the company works with vendors such as Cisco Systems, Citrix Systems, EMC, Hewlett-Packard, IBM,Microsoft, Novell, Quest Software and Symantec. Its most important partners, however, are EMC, Cisco and Microsoft -- primarily due to the needs of Inacom’s clients.

“All of our solutions are built around addressing clients’business issues and requirements,” says Frank Albi, president and COO at Inacom.“Then we align with manufacturers that offer the right components to do that.”This led Inacom to EMC for storage and virtualization, to Microsoft for software and to Cisco for networking and voice technology. Authorized at the highest levels and supported by account managers at each of the big three, Inacom works hard to create winning relationships.

“All manufacturers’ channel programs are spun around their core competencies and their goals, and they’re constantly trying to push and nudge you for their reasons,” says Albi.“That doesn’t always align with your interests, so you’re constantly managing the relationship to stay in harmony.” Having worked at Cisco and other large vendors, Albi handles much of this himself. His approach is highly proactive, including weekly calls with vendor channel personnel, serving on partner councils, attending management retreats and actively sharing insights Inacom has gained from working with its clients. Serving as a link between clients and vendors has helped to make Inacom a strategic partner.

“The customer says, this is what I have an appetite for today, and the manufacturers, needing growth, turn to us to get their new technology adopted,” says Albi.“We act as a kind of bridge between the two, often engaging with manufacturer product teams to help them get it right.” Sometimes the feedback is negative -- the market may not be ready for a new product or technology.At other times, the give-and-take leads to a win for everyone involved, including solution-provider perks such as early distribution rights, rebates and other rewards.

Consider Inacom’s early support for Microsoft’s unified communications solution. For the past two years, Albi has worked with Microsoft as a sounding board on the technology and its business benefits, while sharing feedback on the market’s readiness. Inacom has also shared concerns that Cisco’s partners might have in presenting Microsoft’s solution to clients.

Convinced of the rightness ofMicrosoft’s integration strategy for unified communications, Inacom invested heavily: The company became one of the first three solution providers certified on the technology, and today runs it in-house, integrated with a Cisco VoIP system. In return, Inacom has received high levels of training, technical and marketing support, and was honored as a preferred provider in Microsoft’s unified communications launch last October.

That’s the advantage of smart vendor relationship management. As Albi says, “Our give-and-take partnerships create a winning chemistry with the vendors while bringing great value to our clients.”

future Vision:
Distribution Paves the Way
Although vendor relationship management can have many subtleties, for some solution providers it boils down to a simple concept: Leverage the power of the distribution channel. Christine Redshaw, president of future Vision, a $2 million consulting and systems integration company that serves mostly smaller customers, believes in that wholeheartedly.

“I don’t want to deal with the vendors directly,” says Redshaw, whose lead vendors include CA, IBM, Lenovo,Microsoft and SonicWALL. “I have strong relationships with the vendor- teams’ people at distribution, and every one of them is up to date on the vendor programs and on every kind of discount we are eligible for. Dealing direct can be very frustrating -- it seems like your team changes every day, and the people you talk to know less than those at companies like Ingram Micro.”

With 13 years in the business, Redshaw has some experience -- mostly negative -- dealing directly with the vendor community. Annoyed, she mentions how a former vendor continues to call, promising better margins if future Vision would cut out distribution and buy direct. “We would love to make higher margins, but we value the support we receive from the distribution channel,” says Redshaw. She also reports how a former hardware vendor used to call her customers directly after she had submitted a bid, offering to beat the price."

Talk about an incentive to switch vendors. Redshaw proceeded by leveraging her relationship with Ingram Micro. She had always been impressed by IBM’s quality, technical support and customer service, so she decided to pursue a partnership. At the time, however, five years ago, IBM required its resellers to have a storefront, which future Vision did not have. Sitting down with an IBM vice president after dinner at an Ingram Micro event, she made her case. Two weeks later, future Vision’s IBM authorization came through.

Ingram Micro’s strong contacts in the vendor community have helped Redshaw’s IBM business in other ways as well. Last year, Ingram Micro’s market development team helped future Vision execute a marketing event centered on IBM Tivoli storage software.After a short seminar at its offices, future Vision treated the attendees to dinner and a hockey game -- all paid for by Ingram Micro and IBM. Says Redshaw, “Our customers came away with a better understanding of our IBM practice, and we came across as a big fish.”

future Vision also uses Ingram Micro’s Seismic platform of managed services and relies on the distributor for free technical support and staff training. Ingram Micro has even offered to fly future Vision’s personnel to the training site. “Because we're small to the vendors, we don’t get those kinds of offers from them,” Redshaw says. “That’s why we’re so loyal to Ingram Micro -- the more we do for them, they more they do for us.” That, as we have seen, is an excellent definition of a win-win vendor relationship.

Making the Right Moves
If you’d like to improve your vendor relationship management, consider adopting these best practices:

• Appoint a champion. “If no one’s responsible for managing vendors, don’t expect them to come running to you,” warns Rash of Northwest Computer Support. It pays to appoint a single executive, the higher up the better, to champion your firm to key vendor partners.
• Focus on strategic vendors. “If you align yourself with a small number of strategic vendors, you can become expert on their programs and sell more of their products,” says Robinson of Ingram Micro. “That will make it easier to reap all the benefits they offer, such as rebates, sales leads, marketing funds and joint sales calls.”
• Know your vendor and yourself. You can’t be everything to everyone. By understanding your vendors’ priorities and how your competencies and business model align with them, you will make the strongest case for receiving special benefits.
• Plan jointly. Try to arrange at least one joint planning session annually with your lead vendors, where you can establish your commitment level, set a go-to-market strategy and ask for the help you need.
• Leverage your distributor. “Ingram Micro truly champions solution providers to the vendor community,” says Albi of Inacom. “The average partner can count on Ingram Micro as a highly valued resource.”