Kelly takes the helm at Hitachi

Hitachi Data Systems has appointed Steve Kelly as channel director for A/NZ. The company has also appointed six new channel staff to steer business across the region. Kelly replaces Kerstin Baxter, who will now lead Hitachi’s Asia Pacific channel push as the new director of Volume Channels.

Kelly said that Hitachi’s existing channel model will remain largely the same as that established by his predecessor. He explained that his goals over the next two months will be to unify the new team and begin rolling out increased support and assistance to partners to build an autonomous channel program. Kelly added that his primary responsibility will be driving Hitachi’s business to be three quarters channel-led by 2010.

“We’re on a good growth trajectory at the moment. We’ve seen solid growth in 2007 and we’ve put an investment case together for resources around enablement and people to help us achieve that vision”, he said.

Hitachi is hoping to continue its growth by building its capacity within the channel. To this end the company has appointed several regional channel managers, a new distribution manager, a partner manager, an SMB partner recruiter and a national partner manager.

“We took a pragmatic view of what it would take not only in terms of sales teams actually out in the field to assist in helping the channel team and our business partners to go out in the field and close deals, but also examined what other elements you need to build capacity with our channel around enablement and marketing”, he said. “We also considered what incentives model we want to build so that our partners can see value in partnering with HDS”.

Kelly added that the company will continue its focus on the financial services and telecommunications industries, but will be seeking to expand its relationship with independent software vendors to enable the company to reach into new market segments.