Partner sales sing as Sun puts channel in spotlight

For the September quarter, Sun increased partner sales from 50 percent to 60 percent of its business in Australia in revenue terms, due, said Paul O'Connor, director of partner sales at Sun Australia.

The lift was mainly due to the introduction of a new partner program first announced in July, O'Connor said.

O'Connor said Sun's decision to publish around 20 direct accounts on its partner website and new incentives to encourage internal sales staff to engage channel partners on deals had helped increase channel business.

“Internal sales [staff] have more incentives to work with the channel. We've identified key accounts that have substantial amounts of Sun equipment and account reps have better incentives to use partners in there,” he said. O'Connor said there are around 150 accounts on the key accounts list.

Sun sales staff get a 10 percent “uplift” against their sales quota if they employ channel partners on deals, O'Connor said.

However, he said Sun sales were only “up marginally” on the same period last year. “There are fewer deals, but we're doing more business with those deals,” he said.