Sounds like the begining of the day on the stock exchanges at the present moment. Ouch. We try to help our clients retire their equipment in a much gentler fashion.
Matthew Archer, CEO of ICP explains, No matter how flexible vendors try to make their trade in programs they are very rarely geared to support the challenges that their partners meet on a daily basis.
Rarely is the technology refresh just a swap of old for new. It involves trade in of incompatible products and products that are difficult to value. The trigger for the replacement may be to end up with a single vendor site that is easier to manage and support, possibly to reduce the footprint in a datacenter or to move to a more flexible IT environment utilising new architectures like virtualisation and blade servers.
Whatever the reason for the technology refresh the solution has to be tailored to the requirements of the client and involve the channel company with the least risk and the greatest profit margin.
Tailoring a solution for a client is also more than just agreeing a trade in value for the replaced equipment as Matthew explains, Many clients can’t administer a trade in, with respect to an actual sale, they don t have a process for it. Many times they can t accept an actual payment, so we can give them credit towards hardware or exchange for what they require at the time.
Sometimes we have to be creative and the solution may be supplying a cost effective DR backup solution as a direct replacement for their old equipment, supporting their new installation.
Whatever is needed we quickly find out what is right for the channel partner and their client and adjust our system around what works for them.
The important thing for the channel partner is to involve ICP at the proposal stage to ensure that the whole deal works for all parties.
By not getting us involved at the start, resellers end up picking up trade in s they have costed into the deal, but don’t really know what they are worth, comments Matthew.
They can accumulate in warehouses and end up not worth anything.
Having spotted the opportunity to help the client and gain a reward for themselves, they then don t actually know what to do about it after they have done the deal.
In many instances the channel partner also finds it difficult to structure a deal that works for their client. The bigger the deal the more complex the solution, stated Mathew. “There may be politics involved, unrealistic book valuations and recycling issues.
ICP has experience in all these areas and can help the reseller put a tailored solution together that meets the requirements of all parties.
In particular when it comes to recycling, which is now a major issue to all companies, ICP achieves 99% re use of old equipment through re sell. Anything not sold off is scrapped to WEEE Standards.
ICP works with many resellers and their sales and project managers to maximise the business opportunity from technology refresh. We ‘unblock the flow’ when it comes to doing a deal that works for all parties, concluded Matthew.
If you have a technology refresh opportunity and need some help working out the best solution why not give me a call on 01625 856 480 or drop me an email at sales@icpnetworks.co.uk