Considering the vast majority of global IT sales go through the channel, you would think the large IT vendors know all they need to know about working with partners. Of course, partners know that’s not the case.

That’s why the Global Technology Distribution Council (GTDC) – a trade association representing more than two dozen of the largest distributors – spends so much time educating vendors. The GTDC last week released a report on the onboarding process for vendors, one of three annual reports to go with three conferences and frequent podcasts aimed at helping vendors work better with partners. I spoke with GTDC CEO Frank Vitagliano about what many vendors still need to know about the channel.

“You'd be amazed at how emerging vendors, for example, who are trying to figure out how to go to market and expand their presence don't really understand the role of distribution and the value that they can bring,” he said. “So we spent a lot of time with folks like that. We also spend a lot of time with legacy players who are either always changing personnel or they bring in somebody to be the channel chief that just may not have the depth of experience.”

Frank Vitagliano

Vitagliano has plenty of channel experience – four decades as a channel chief for companies including IBM, Dell and Juniper Networks. He understands the challenges a vendor channel chief faces both externally working with partners and internally convincing colleagues of the benefits.

“Our primary constituency is the vendors,” he said of the GTDC’s focus. “I spent 40 years as a channel chief, and I can tell you from experience that I was constantly teaching folks within my organization about the value of the channel. Of course, distribution always came in for a lot of discussion, because a lot of people viewed it as an unnecessary middleman. ‘Why do we need distributors?’ So our research papers are based on input that we get from the vendor community.”

The just-released “The Distribution Onramp” paper includes interviews with successful vendors about best practices in evaluating pre-distribution market coverage, building sales and technical competencies, and establishing clear rules of engagement.

“You have a lot of people within vendor organizations that just don't really have a fundamental understanding of the channel,” Vitagliano said. “How does it work? How are the channel salespeople paid? What's the investment that the channel has to make in building out their business model? It requires constant education, constant work. It's gotten a little better in some cases, and probably a little worse in others.”

Vitagliano said GTDC’s next paper later this year will be about educating people in vendor organizations not directly involved in the channel or with little channel experience.

“It’s essentially a guide for people within vendor organizations who aren't necessarily channel-educated,” he said. “It might be your CRO who's responsible for all routes to market, or marketing individuals who think they know about channels but really don't.”

He pointed out how the largest enterprise vendors have broad product groups that touch every part of an IT organization – network, compute, storage, etc. “Every one of those groups has a head of product who funds part of the go-to-market piece,” Vitagliano said. “They all want input but don't really understand the process.

“The guide is also intended to educate finance people. There are a lot of CFOs in vendor organizations who just don't understand the channel or the benefits of going to market through distribution. All they see is cost. So one of the things we try to do is explain that it’s a lot more than cost.”