The public sector represents about 25% of ProCurve’s UK revenue, but Luana Holland, its UK marketing manager, said the company needs to get more into the education and government sectors with its resellers.
It has announced a new customer program whereby resellers can make three additional percentage points of margin on the list price of the equipment. In the education sector, this would typically mean bringing in an 11% commission rather than the normal 8%, with higher figures in government and healthcare, said country manager Jon Weatherall.
This means there must be a clear definition of what constitutes a new customer for ProCurve, and Holland said this would be a company that has not bought any kit from the company since January 2003.
Aware that its existing resellers might not have the necessary customer base in the target segments, and desirous of enticing partners away from the competition, HP is opening the new promotion to non-ProCurve resellers. It is expecting to attract Cisco and 3Com partners to its ranks, even though they will probably not abandon completely their existing relationships.
The new customer promotion lasts until the end of March 2006, with resellers having to sign the customers up with HP by the end of October. This offer to resellers is, of course, in addition to our existing incentives, such as our standard 5% up-front discount on all ProCurve products sold into the public sector, rising to 10% in the case of the educational sector, Holland said. We also have our trade-in program, which enables customers from any sector to swap their kit for ours at generous rates.
Weatherall said the program is currently UK-specific, but could be taken into France or Germany relatively easily.
