Tell me about how HP deal registrations work
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@Dashrender said:
What I don't understand is why the VAR relationship is so important? If you listen to Scott's previous borderline rants about hiring, i.e. paying, the right people to design the right solution for you, assuming you're not doing the research for that design yourself, at that point the person selling you the gear should be offering you very little if any value at all.
What am I missing here?
It's a complicated web of partnerships
While yes you are correct, I'm often spitting a little at the degree to which I don't believe that IT should be turning to VARs to get design advice, do IT for them, etc. I do believe that VARs have an incredibly important role to play in the overall process - it's just later in the process than people often engage them.
VARs do the basic sales stuff, of course. They generate quotes, handle returns and such. But all equipment fails, the VAR is going to be a big piece in dealing with that stuff as well. VARs have roadmap info that IT needs and can help with projections about upcoming technologies, products, discontinuations, changes, etc. They have very deep product knowledge that IT can lean on. A VAR would not be installing your server for you, but your VAR will be checking configurations and making recommendations at a micro scale (rather than the macro where people tend to turn to them.)
So, for example, your VAR is the one who needs to check that the RAID card you order will work with the drives you want, both the model and the size and the quantity, they are the ones that make sure that you are getting the drive cage that makes sense for your needs, that you know how to get the SD card readers, that the cache system will have all of the necessary components, that you know about deals on last year's model, that you know the release schedule for next years and things like that.
The VARs provide the consulting "within" the scope of the product that they sell rather than the scope "without" the product that they sell. IT handles the big scope, the "how are we going to use this and why", the VAR makes sure that the product itself works as intended or is delivered as desired.
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As an MSP, something that we do is engage good VARs, they are an important part of our ecosystem. But for our customers, an important aspect of what we do is shielding them from raw interactions with those VARs. As an MSP we have very little "emotions" in the game, it's hard for a VAR to try sales gimmicks on us (especially because they can only do that to one person, not the team, and when the team reviews things that would get caught as a weird decision) in the same way that IT departments can shield management from VARs internally (but VARs work hard to get around logical IT to emotional owners, they know how the game is played.) Having an MSP do it adds an extra mental block, and as an MSP our VAR relationships tend to be bigger and better which means that our VARs have more to lose by not doing a good job with us and we know what VARs to go to for what.
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I hear what you are saying - but this granular level of checking is something I've rarely properly encountered as a small time player in the SMB market.
Great example - I called my VAR (though I don't do enough business with them, perhaps we don't really have that kind of relationship) and asked for a iLo license for my server. I have them the model and serial number. I purchased two of the wrong things before eventually spending over an hour on the phone with HPE discovering the correct part number and that I bought from someone else.
This isn't the first time this has happened to me, though I do usually get the correct part on the second try.
So I can definitely see the value in the VAR relationship at someone like NTG's scale or bigger, but for someone like me who buys one server every 3-5 years, and PC's every hopefully 5+ years, there's not enough meat on our sales bone for the VAR to pay us much mind.
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@Dashrender said:
Great example - I called my VAR (though I don't do enough business with them, perhaps we don't really have that kind of relationship) and asked for a iLo license for my server. I have them the model and serial number. I purchased two of the wrong things before eventually spending over an hour on the phone with HPE discovering the correct part number and that I bought from someone else.
So you see where the VAR is needed, yours just screwed up
Could just be an accident, could be HPE's fault (the split has caused a lot of problems), etc. All HPE VARs are new VARs, as HPE is a new company. So a lot of opportunity for problems. -
@Dashrender said:
So I can definitely see the value in the VAR relationship at someone like NTG's scale or bigger, but for someone like me who buys one server every 3-5 years, and PC's every hopefully 5+ years, there's not enough meat on our sales bone for the VAR to pay us much mind.
That takes my discussion about how big vendors don't see the SMB as valuable to a whole new level of even little VARs don't see it
But this is why you don't work with a VAR as an SMB. I always have said that SMBs should have MSPs as their IT either fully or integrated. It's the MSP's volume that you use, not your own. It's not the reason you use an MSP, but it is a natural benefit to that system. MSPs turn SMBs into big business.
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I understand the MSP push for SMB's, but do they really want to deal with you either, again assuming you're someone like me - doing my on research and I'm only calling the MSP so they can order stuff for me? They are going to have to add onto the price they get from their VAR to cover their costs, and that just adds to the cost for the end customer (me in this case), it doesn't really help me.
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I'm like you Dash. I'd rather do my own research and just get someone to place the order for me. I don't really get any "value" from my VAR. If there was something I was unsure about I'd be more likely to post on here that ask them.
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In the case of you deciding not to use a VAR for what they are there for. Why not just go with CDW, Amazon or like Newegg or something to order stuff?
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Aren't CDW a VAR? What's the difference?
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@Carnival-Boy said:
Aren't CDW a VAR? What's the difference?
CDW tries to be a VAR - and to a limited degree I guess they are, but your best interest isn't what they have in mind.
CDW tries to sell you whatever they are getting good prices on that week. This week it might be McAfee, next it's Symantec.
If you work with CDW only with the scope that Scott mentioned earlier - you tell them the server you want, and the general parts, they do a pretty good job of making sure the parts all work together before they sell them to you.
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CDW can be used as a VAR or you can go online and order what you want with no human interaction as well. Even if you have to call in and order you don't need to do anything with them. However be advised they do still register deals with Vendors. So if you order or talk about ordering with them you are locking it up for anyone else.
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So the take out from this thread is that you need to be pretty sure who you want to buy from before you get any quotes, right?
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@Carnival-Boy said:
So the take out from this thread is that you need to be pretty sure who you want to buy from before you get any quotes, right?
Yep.
The idea of shopping around is apparently just not a real thing at this level - which I agree with the @Carnival-Boy seems weird.
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The VARs I normally buy PCs and stuff from are pretty big here in the UK (Insight, Softcat, Misco) and carry huge stocks of HP servers. If they keep stock, I'm guessing they won't register the deals, since they've already bought the stock off HP (ie the deal has already been done). Is that right, do you think?
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The pricing is the pricing to everyone period. The deal you get is due to your relationship with the VAR. The VAR' all get about the same points they use these to make a profit on the item. Say the deal is $5,000 if you get 10 points that is $500 to the VAR for profit. They can choose to drop that $5000 up to $500 off to give you a deal. The relationship with the VAR is where your cheaper price comes in.
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@Carnival-Boy said:
The VARs I normally buy PCs and stuff from are pretty big here in the UK (Insight, Softcat, Misco) and carry huge stocks of HP servers. If they keep stock, I'm guessing they won't register the deals, since they've already bought the stock off HP (ie the deal has already been done). Is that right, do you think?
Possibly but probably not. They will still probably register it. They are just dealing in large quantities (they probably have a little more wiggle room than a smaller VAR on points) but they will still register it. This is how they trace the purchase, and warrantees etc.
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Well to @Carnival-Boy point, I have had CDW tell me they get better pricing from HP for my project if they register the deal with HP - are you saying that's not true?
Are you saying - That the only thing that registering does is put HP on notice.. and when you call Insite and ask for a quote, they contact HP to register the deal, and HP says.. oh hey, yeah.. someone else already registered that deal. Now Insite just doesn't bother competing on price and simply offers MSRP?
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@Dashrender said:
Well to @Carnival-Boy point, I have had CDW tell me they get better pricing from HP for my project if they register the deal with HP - are you saying that's not true?
Are you saying - That the only thing that registering does is put HP on notice.. and when you call Insite and ask for a quote, they contact HP to register the deal, and HP says.. oh hey, yeah.. someone else already registered that deal. Now Insite just doesn't bother competing on price and simply offers MSRP?
Pretty much. Unless there is an extreme case, Insite won't get any deals on it so yup more than likely they will just offer you the MSRP. Again bigger VAR's that deal in lots of volume probably get better deals for offering percentages off. But in my experience not that much from what say NTG can do a deal on.
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really my bigger question was - so CDW lied to me.
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@Dashrender Umm Sales guy. This is where a true VAR is better than the big dogs. Hence what Scott is always saying. Your relationship with your VAR is what matters most.
