Channels in Portugal and France are less happy with their distributors than those in other parts of Europe's major markets, says a study by researcher Context which talks to partners in France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Portugal and the UK.
The channel in Western Europe was mainly happy with the performance of its distributors over the past year, especially in the UK, where the percentage of distributors excelling according to those surveyed climbed above 40%, contrasting with Portugal and France, which had the lowest number of “excellent” rated distributors.
What resellers look for is speed of delivery – a far more important aspect than price, even with some 83% of the partners saying this was the key strength of their main distributor; customers services and prompt communications also scored highly at 78%, slightly ahead of product availability, price, portfolios and credit. Just behind this cam price and tech support, with certification and training down below 70% saying it was a key strength.
The market analyst’s ChannelWatch report aims to show what resellers really think about some of the key trends in the industry across the UK, Spain, Portugal, France, Germany and Italy. Over 2,000 business owners and senior managers from key channel businesses including resellers, vendors, retailers, distributors contributed to the findings.
Those surveyed liked Dell’s recent move to buy EMC, and a net number of 88 channel businesses are thinking of adding Dell to their list in the next six months. The only other vendor close to these figures was Lenovo with 59. The respondents took a mixed view when it came to HP’s demerger in HPE and HP Inc.Two-thirds of respondents claimed the demerger would have a “mixed” impact on whether they’d choose HP products going forward. However, positive and very positive respondents (22%) slightly outnumbered negative and strongly negative channel businesses (13%).