The Crowning Glory

HP’s growth this year too was driven by strong sales/marketing campaigns and good mind-share among consumers. This momentum was driven by the fact that portable computers continue to gain in dominance among the PC market segments despite weaker overall PC marketplace. And notwithstanding the initial apprehensions, it seems the merger of HP’s Printing and Personal Systems (PPS) Group has gone down well with the overall channel engagements. HP’s position as #1 yet again is a testament to the trust that partners place on its innovation, rich product portfolio and support infrastructure.Last year when HP was crowned the channel’s favorite desktop vendor, DQ Channels claimed that HP has reinforced its invincibility. As HP again turns out to be the darling of the channel in 2014, thanks to its aggressive market focus, product quality, brand-pull, customer marketing, and channel policy and management, DQ Channels is really at a loss of words to explain how HP has assimilated itself into the channel partners’ mindshare.

The three strongest points of HP remains its technological leadership, diversity of its product range (thanks to the plethora of new launches throughout the year) as well as the various training and certification programs for channel partners. On the flip side, issues pertaining to the profit margins HP gives to its partners as well as its credit policies came in for criticism. The availability and competence of account managers is another long standing issue plaguing HP for years now and it must address this to stave off competition from the likes of Dell and Lenovo.

Market heavyweights like Dell and Lenovo continued to maintain the second and third positions, respectively in the list. While the channel gave thumbs up to Dell in terms of overall product reliability, conformance to specifications and richness of online resources offered, its imbroglio with a large section of partners over the parallel import issue as well as payment related problems pulled Dell back to an extent. Improper allocation of funds for marketing (co-op funding) and little flexibility in conducting localized promotions were cited as other common complaints against Dell.

Though Lenovo has raised much expectation with the turnaround in its fortunes in the last two years, channel partners still seemed to resent the lack of consistency in honoring commitments made by its personnel to the partners as well as the inconsistency and effectiveness of its communication with channel partners. Even Lenovo’s back-end incentives and their settlements seem to be not pleasing the channel partners much. On the positive side, there is a widespread endorsement for Lenovo’s diversity of product range, price vs performance ratio and innovativeness of its market development programs.

Swot Analysis of Winner Trio

HP

Strengths

• Technological leadership of the product
•  Diversity of the product range
• Training and certification programs for channel partners

Weaknesses

• Less profit margins given by vendor
• Needs more robust credit policy received
•  Insufficient availability and competence of account managers

Dell

Strengths

• Overall product reliability
• Conformance to specifications
• Richness of online resources offered

Weaknesses

• Inadequate point of sales material
• Less allocation of funds for marketing (co-op funding)
•  Needs flexibility in conducting localized promotions

Lenovo

Strengths

• Diversity of the product range
• Price vs. performance ratio
• Innovativeness of market development programs

Weaknesses

• Less consistency in honoring commitments made by the vendor’s personnel to the partners
• Less consistency and effectiveness of communication with channel partners
• Delayed back-end incentives and its settlement