Who’s the New Guy at McAfee?

Did you notice a new guy showed up at McAfee 2 months ago? Well, not exactly new at McAfee, but new in the channel chief role. Your thoughts on this probably range from "so what" to "oh, great, a new guy to break in." Good news for you: he gets it.

Dave Dickison is McAfee’s new senior vice president of channel sales. Talk to Dickison and you’ll see that he gets what it takes for a vendor to support its partners and he gets what the issues are revolving around security and the resellers who focus on that market. Amazon Consulting recently checked in with the new channel chief and came away with some insights on McAfee’s objectives for its partners and Dickison’s take on the security market.

Okay, so Dickison says all the right things, like: "Our objective and goal is to continue to innovate and lead the industry," and that the company wants to work with resellers…to make McAfee their number one partner." Sure, that sounds canned, but what really keeps him up at night? Dig a bit deeper and you find out that he has given considerable thought to the state of the security market and what it takes to be successful.
To read the entire article, click here.

SOLUTION SPOTLIGHT

Partner 411

A centralized phone and email resource to assist partners with program questions and issues as well as manage outbound communication to partners.

Do you wish you could provide your partners with "just-in-time" information on your program and products when they need it most? Most of our clients struggle with scaling their limited teams and resources enough to provide partners the information they need, when they need it most– like when they are trying to close a deal or after a new product is introduced. Amazon Consulting’s new "Partner 411" service helps you do just that by providing you an outsourced extension to your current team dedicated to providing your partners with the program, product, sales and technical information they need on-demand.
We can establish a dedicated phone and email resource for your partners including:

• Development of program FAQs and key contact/referral lists
• A customized email alias and toll-free phone number
• A professional Amazon Consulting project manager to respond to partner requests and questions immediately (or the next business day)
• Call logs and weekly status reports including key metrics

INDUSTRY SPOTLIGHT

The Demise of PRM: Why Did First Generation
Efforts Fall Short?

Recently it was announced that ClickCommerce, who not too long ago acquired major channel players ChannelWave and Allegis, will be acquired by company called Illinois Tool Works who specializes in Supply Chain Management Solutions of all things! Or how many of us who've been in channels and alliances for a while remember PartnerWare, OnDemand and WebBridge? In 2002, all of these organizations were high flyers—even the next big thing—doubling within one year into a $2 billion industry, according to IDC. According to a META Group report of that time the solutions developed by these companies were supposed to help companies "synchronize, optimize and understand sales and demand impacts across channels." But things didn’t work out as planned.
To read entire editorial, click here.