Gurpreet Singh Brar
Director – Commercial Channel Sales,
PPS HP India
There is no denying the fact that over 90% of HP’s sales that happen in India today are through its channel partners. And, it is this focus on Channel that drives HP to come up with more channel-friendly programmes and build for itself a reputation of a channel-centric company that has always been held high in esteem.
“In my role of overseeing the commercial channel for HP PPS India, I am responsible for working closely with our commercial channel partners to develop strategies and plans for mutual growth. I am also responsible for planning and expanding SMB business in the country, which again helps HP grow together with our commercial channel. MWe liaise and work closely with the partners, VARs and ISVs and their product and sales team for various business growth needs. Our key mandate is to ensure that all our partners have a profitable and consistent business growth with us,” explains Gurpreet Singh Brar, Director – Commercial Channel Sales, PPS HP India, while explaining about his role post the merger of Printing and Personal Systems businesses.
Key Growth Verticals for HP
HP has products and solutions that are designed to address the needs of all major industry verticals – from BFSI and manufacturing to retail, telecom, media and entertainment, IT, ITeS and others. However, the company has gone a step further and customized its offerings to the specific needs of micro-verticals through a differentiated sales, marketing and channel- enablement approach. HP has organized geography-specific micro-vertical focussed events, including events for the gems and jewellery industry in Surat and manufacturing industry in Chennai.
Post PPS Integration
Partners have come to realize tremendous growth opportunities post merger of the Printing and Personal Systems businesses. The optimized PPS structure makes HP a stronger partner and easier to do business with. “We have streamlined our channel partner engagement processes to give partners an improved experience while helping them to build higher margins, higher than they did before. Our new partner engagement model is based on three pillars of Simplification, Profitability and Innovation,” Gurpreet opines.
Earlier, there were multiple channel partners aligned with PC or printers business or both, which was, in itself, a big challenge. But after integration, HP has introduced rules of engagement, defining partners who are working in which space from both the individual category standpoint.
HP is also constantly working towards integrating multiple delivery channel networks into a single support partner network. Earlier, there were separate partners managing print and PC after sales support. Now there are partners who offer after-sales support to both print and PC customers. “We have largely increased the partner advisory board meets. Earlier, we had just one PAB meet, wherein we invited partners from across the regions. Now, we have identified multiple regions where we had PABs which is helping us better understand what we need to improve from the product, engagement and overall commercial standpoint and know if partners are really feeling enabled,” Gurpreet sums up.
samrita@varindia.com
