Toshiba wants to change the shape of its channel. A 70% weighting of platinum-level partners in Europe, especially in the UK and Germany leaves a balance of 20% gold-level and 10% silver. It wants more of the lower level partners, and has adjusted its partner programme.
Trialled in France, a Win Win promotion which gives gold and silver levels cash and MDF incentives is being rolled out across Europe with UK, Benelux, DACH, Italy and Iberia plus the Nordics to be covered. Most will start the programme this quarter, and it expects, based on the €2.4m payments in France, to spend more than €10m in a full year says William Biotteau (below), European Channel Director, Lifestyle Product & Services Division at Toshiba Europe GmbH. “We are constantly looking for new ways to better support and grow our partner network, so we’re excited to be replicating the success of Win Win we experienced in France across Europe”. Poland will follow in due course as a way to pilot the scheme in emerging markets.
The Win Win programme is open to Silver and Gold Partner Programme members and will offer the opportunity to earn points with qualifying purchases on the following products:
Satellite Pro : 1 point per PC purchased
Tecra : 3 points per PC purchased
Portégé : 3 points per PC purchased
Docking stations and power units : 3 points per product purchased
For every point received partners will earn £1, which can then be converted into marketing budget, funds for demonstration products or gifts for its team, new business prospects or existing customers.
There will also be incentives for the distributors - the main ones in Europe are Ingram Micro, Tech Data, ALSO and Esprinet - to sign up more smaller resellers and retailers. The UK and DACH regions have a preponderance of larger Toshiba resellers at the platinum level and this needs to be addressed, he says, by gaining new resellers. Ideally there should be equal numbers in each category.
The resellers are very varied in how they have used the rebates and rewards so far; smaller ones tend to use them directly on their balance sheets; the larger ones to incentivise their sales teams, but it is very variable, he says. Some will use the Toshiba funds to run events and for marketing.
While Toshiba is highlighting the hardware with these incentives, it is working on developing wider solutions and cloud partnerships, he concludes.
