Nortel ‘scales back’ SMB resellers

The network equipment vendor said it wants to make a ‘concerted effort’ to get in the face of its SMB resellers by ‘scaling back’ the number of resellers involved in nForce – its channel program for SMBs.

Martin Hatcher, Nortel's SMB sales leader for A/NZ, told CRN the vendor wants to improve its relationship with nForce partners.

“Around 18 months ago we went on a recruitment drive for nForce and we targeted around 1000 partners,” he said.

“nForce ended up with small partners numbering in the hundreds. We found there wasn't enough sales staff for those partners.”

Hatcher said Nortel plans to rectify this by reducing its channel partners to around 70 to 80 resellers.

“We have had great feedback and resellers love it because they get more face time with our sales staff,” he claimed.

According to Hatcher, resellers that purchase Nortel products on a smaller scale will still be able to associate with Nortel as unaffiliated partners.

“Nortel is constantly evolving its nForce program and we are constantly reviewing our partners," he said.

"Unaffiliated partners will be able to come back to the program once they start to purchase our products, on a regular basis.”

Nortel has made two appointments to support nForce members. Luke Power, will look after resellers in New South Wales while Peter Schmidt will do the same across Victoria.