Ashtead, UK – 25th November 2004 – The new strategy is the result of a reorganisation of the company’s sales process, replacing an approach that mixed ad hoc sales through one or two resellers with direct sales to end customers.
The foundation stone of the strategy will be a number of Reseller Accreditation Programmes. Each BridgeHead Reseller Accreditation Program will be unique and tailored to the distributor.
Accredited resellers will benefit from a flow of qualified leads, pre-sales support, technical back-up, co-operative marketing and training.
The first such programme will be implemented through ARC Technology Distribution, a leading European Value Added Distributor and Bridgehead partner. ARC will accredit, on BridgeHead’s behalf, between 10 and 20 ‘elite’ resellers.
Peter Hubbard, channel manager at BridgeHead Software, said: “The nature of the emerging information management market requires a consultative sales approach, and that has serious implications for the calibre of both the distributor and reseller that BridgeHead needs. ARC goes to what are, in our experience, somewhat unusual lengths to help resellers close deals, and this is exactly what we were looking for but had previously failed to find. It puts its money where its mouth is to bring in the business; it’s very proactive.”
For example, ARC operates its own in-house telemarketing team and – providing orders are fulfilled through ARC – qualifies, free of charge, contact lists of its own, or lists provided by resellers, or lists generated by co-funded marketing campaigns.
Reseller discounts will provide a attractive margin for resellers, excluding professional services. BridgeHead currently turns 55% of its revenue in Europe and is targeting a doubling in European sales next year.
Owen Dukes, CEO of Arc Technology, said: “As compliance and regulatory initiatives take hold, storage management represents one of the biggest market opportunities in IT. By administering BridgeHead’s Reseller Accreditation Programme we expect to put ourselves, and the resellers, in a stronger position to take a piece of the inevitable action through sales of
its excellent range of products.”
About Arc Technology Distribution Ltd.
Arc was founded in 1991 as UniDirect, which developed tools and utilities for the growing UNIX market. The company identified that most market needs could be fulfilled with shrink-wrapped software and provided the growing number of VARs and ISVs with the utilities needed to integrate with their own software.
Discussions began early in 2002 between leading industry professionals; all of whom had a clear idea of what was required to answer Channel business issues and the type of company needed to lead this challenging market. Arc was born.
Today Arc aims to bring the best of everything to the Channel and to run distribution to everyone’s benefit in the way it should be: efficient, exciting, innovative and supportive.
Arc will become a leading organization based on best-of-breed distribution elements combined with the creation of a new business model which will offer unique and hugely valuable benefits to vendors, VARs and their end-user customers.
Major financial investment has been made in top quality industry-respected people who will achieve Arc’s aims of becoming the flagship for Channel distribution with unquestionable integrity and a unique managed service.
About BridgeHead Software
BridgeHead is a technology company with a total focus on intelligent storage management software. Over the past 10 years, BridgeHead has supplied its technology to large application and hardware vendors like Connected Corporation, Dell, MEDITECH, EMC, HP, and IBM, to facilitate their customers’ storage management needs.
Founded in 1994, with corporate offices in the UK, USA, and Germany, BridgeHead Software’s multi-platform software provides a complete intelligent storage management approach. The solutions are designed for archive, enterprise backup, media management and disaster recovery.
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