Another example of vendors forgetting to credit partners

Vendors love their partners – or at least, that’s what their channel teams say when they’re speaking to the editor of CRN.

But every day I receive press releases from public relations companies, pitching stories about a major customer win, where they fail to mention the reseller. You know the drill – “Client X installs Product Y from Vendor Z”.

While these missives are dense with information and flowery marketing jargon, too often the missing detail is the name of the partner that sweated through the project, who held the client’s hand and made the vendor’s technology hum. If the partner does get a mention in the press release, it’s typically in the same place – buried in the final paragraph.

In our March issue of CRN, our guest columnist highlights the top 10 things partners want from their vendors. Some are unsurprising (more margin, anyone?) and I hear others from readers all the time (especially reducing program complexity).

There are lessons here for vendors who are building, or rebuilding, partner enablement strategies. One that springs to mind is Dell. This month in CRN magazine, we speak to channel chief Geoff Wright, who has been tasked with the none-too-easy task of re-creating Dell as a channel-first operation.

The same work is occurring at Telstra, a company whose legacy has been in the telco channel, but is now opening up to cloud and managed service-type companies. This is especially relevant as these IT providers look to bolt on carrier and ISP services, which we cover in special report in the magazine.

Credit where it’s due, one vendor that regularly remembers to reference partners in PR is Microsoft. I can recall only one release that failed to hat-tip the reseller, and it turned out that was a direct engagement (something that annoys partners for a whole other set of reasons).

All three of these vendors – Microsoft, Dell and Telstra – are Platinum sponsors of the CRN Pipeline conference, along with Intel. Pipeline takes place in Sydney and Melbourne in April. There are still a few tickets left if you hurry to register today at www.techpartner.news/pipeline.