Gen-i NZ's Gary Walker; DC Technologies' Shaun Vosper; Rittal NZ's Brad Riach; Orion Energy NZ's Neville Digby; Express Data NZ's Philip Presnall; Rittal Australia's Chris Denis; Rittal A/NZ's Mark Roberts; Strategic Directions' Byron Wallace; WhiteGold Solutions' Jonathan Odria and Dominic Whitehand at Rittal's HQ.
Datacentre infrastructure vendor, Rittal, has launched a new channel program, which includes training, dealer registration, design tools, lead generation, channel news and market intelligence initiatives.
Rittal business development manager, Mark Roberts, is the in-charge of the program.
According to Roberts, the new channel partner program is designed to help its resellers capitalise on Rittal‘s solutions in the fast-growing IT infrastructure market.
“Rittal’s sweet spot was previously in the medium to larger-sized datacentre space and we now have an offering that’s designed and ideal for the smaller server room. There’s obviously a big market for that in Australia,” he said.
The program is tiered, consisting of gold partner and silver partner levels. The gold partner will be entitled to sell the entire Rittal IT product set.
“It’s quite a large and complex product offering. In order to sell that, there are a few things the gold resellers are required to commit to, including our training program,” he mentioned.
The silver partner resellers will be involved in selling components instead of its solutions, gaining access to the rack and the single phase UPS systems product set only.
“In addition, the skill level from a sales and support level isn’t as high with those types of solutions so they don’t need to commit as heavily to us on that level.”
Roberts claimed the company is aiming to soon launch a new partner portal in mid-April, which resellers can use to sign up and join the channel program.
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It is also looking to introduce a few incentive programs throughout the year, the first to be launched at CeBIT in May. Other incentives will be launched on a quarterly basis.
Rittal most recently signed on WhiteGold Solutions as its first distribution partner, which Roberts said will be key in driving the partner program for the company.
“We’ve traditionally had a direct sales model but one of the things we’re looking to do in order to grow our business is to engage more in a channel model. That’s a big push for us into 2013,” Roberts added.
