HP admits to communications failure over ITS2000 debacle

HP has admitted to mishandling the restructure of its preferred supplier arrangements for ITS2000 NSW Government contracts, which left 11 of its resellers dumped from the contracts without warning last year.

Some resellers affected were also still waiting for an explanation from HP (see previous story).

“We’ve learnt from this process – there was a break down in the process of ITS2000 communication and we recognise that,” HP’s commercial sales manager Neill Campbell told CRN.

“We have looked at the process of ITS2000 to make sure that we do things better in future.”

HP’s preferred supplier list for lucrative ITS2000 contracts was re-issued late December last year minus 11 Sydney resellers, none of whom were notified of the decision or received any subsequent explanation until more than six months later.

Some of the resellers had been supplying HP to NSW government departments for more than 10 years.

Criticism of communications within HP intensified further when all 11 companies were asked to provide sales documentation to support their cases for reinstatement, despite several of the companies being long term, multimillion dollar suppliers.

“The communication process should have been better – some [resellers] were communicated with and others weren’t,” Campbell said.

However, none of the companies who spoke to CRN had received any correspondence on the matter by April this year, with some still very much in the dark.

Nevertheless, Campbell attributes the breakdown in communications to the fact that none of the resellers had their own account managers within HP and were simply overlooked.

Most were eventually referred to account managers in Malaysia who, some resellers claim, lacked detailed information on the local cases, further frustrating their efforts for reinstatement.

“This [ ITS2000 ] has created angst for the resellers and us and this is not what we want,” Campbell said.

A number of resellers that spoke with CRN have criticised HP for allocating multiple partners to single account managers. One reseller complained, for instance, that there are only two or three account managers for HP in all of Victoria.

Campbell said that only HP’s top 150 or so partners had dedicated account managers but that working more closely with its “non-managed” partners were a definite priority for the company in the future.

Sources close to HP said that that the admission over ITS2000 comes as HP prepares for a major recommitment to the channel after being distracted for several years by the need to develop a proportion of direct business to compete with Dell Computer.
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