HP sets up Partner Advisory Board : By- Sameer Mathur, HP

HP India has set up a Partner Advisory Board, with 25 top channel partners across the country as its members. Under this programme, top 25 channel partners will be incorporated in the HP system to seek their valuable insights and support while devising product and marketing strategies. HP has taken this first-of-its-kind initiative and proposes to make it an annual feature, which would incorporate feedback sessions on a quarterly basis. HP desires its partners to play an increasing role to better the company's market share and penetration across India.

The agenda behind forming this core group of 25 partners is how to collect knowledge of these partners and design the plans, which will serve the customers better and also serve the partners equally better. The advisory board was designed in such a way that a premium partner from every region was present to give an insight into the market and the issues being faced by the partners in their respective regions.

Elaborating on the initiative, Sameer Mathur, Solution Partners Organization, Personal Systems Group, HP India, said, "Majority of our business is managed through partners and since they have a vast experience across varied verticals we thought that it is a good opportunity to take feedback from them on our products and policies. This will help us work more collaboratively. HP wants to re-look at their existing channel policy in terms of product price point, strategies and customer satisfaction.‰ Mathur further indicated that many of the company's clients look for certain products that are slightly de-featured and that they were going to make plans and strategies in a way that it caters to the customer's requirements alongside those of the partner. The company will also focus majorly on their printing business and will work collaboratively with partners to increase their overall market share in the printing space.

The above policy has already been rolled out for partners and the company has recently completed its first round of communication with them. However, there are certain issues to be addressed from the execution point of view and the company is working on them.

Apart from this, some of the partners suggested that the company should make investments into their (partner's) key sales and management members so that they, in turn, can help the business to grow. This is the platform where HP tries to interact with the local issues when all the partners are engaged in working on almost all the product categories.

Among other plans for the year, HP will continue to grow its network of regional distributors.