Australian resellers bare all

While many Australian IT resellers might be focussed on staying ahead of their competition, a group of like-minded local firms is doing the reverse - disclosing budgets and sharing advice.

The HTG Peer Group has attracted 28 Australian resellers with a combined annual revenue of $65 million and is hoping to grow to 50 members here next year.

The group, which claims it can "help change your business and your life", operates in the US and UK, and has had Australian members since 2010.

Now HTG's founder Arlin Sorensen is looking to grow the group's ranks. "We're putting a renewed effort into growth here this year," he told CRN.

Last week, approximately 20 vendors met with Australian resellers in HTG, including Eaton, Big Air, Webroot, Bluechip, Fuji Xerox, Storagecraft, Verizon, eFolder, Manage Protect, Watchguard, Oki and Microsoft.

Local resellers who are members include Leap Consulting and ITMA in Western Australia; Cool Chilli in ACT; Evologic, Evolve and Maxsum in Victoria; LANREX and Flexible Solutions in NSW; Secure Access in Queensland and Advance in South Australia.  

In the US, HTG lists sponsorship from the likes of Intel, Microsoft, Ingram Micro, Lenovo, IBM, Symantec and Synnex.

"[Members] have business acumen and financial understanding," said HTG COO Brad Schow. "It's an attractive set of partners for vendors to want to engage with."

Sorensen said that he wants to start a formalised vendor sponsorship program in Australia in 2015. "We aren't a buying group at all, but we do try to build relationships with vendors," he said.

While pricing is not the focus, CRN was told that vendors sometimes offer members low cost of entry to channel programs.

Members meet quarterly and pay an annual fee of $3,000. In addition, they go through an interview and screening process.

Part of the entry criteria is that resellers must be willing to submit financial reports, which are benchmarked. Members must be in a "non-competitive market" from others in the same group, and there are multiple groups in Australia.

One member, David Norris of Nortec IT Business Solutions, said that it helped him to know he was not "alone".

"I've made tremendous changes to my business based on my experience in the peer group," he said.