The enterprise network market has always been a blossoming scene. With the high-end industry users are some vendors "monopoly", in the case of slowing market demand, small and medium-sized market has become a place of contention. In China, the number of small and medium-sized enterprises, the location of the dispersion of many large equipment manufacturers once disdained, they feel that spend a lot of time and energy, focusing on the profit margins in the SMB market is really not enough to satisfy their appetites.
Time has changed, in the expansion of new profit margins, more and more manufacturers began to layout SMB, and one of the important reasons for winning the SMB market is the channel strategy. Through the channel pulse and influence, can maximize the completion of the terminal sales task, which is also in the SMB market channel is the king of the main reason.
The general manager of Crestec, Zhang Yan, once said: Although in recent years the company's headquarters in the large-scale industry and provincial-level procurement projects, achieved relatively satisfactory results, but through the research, they believe that in the distribution market may be more outstanding, and ultimately in the choice of the distribution channel system model, to take the "regional general agency " mode, by the general agent to cover their respective regions of the second and third-tier markets. This model in the maximum degree to ensure that the channel partners benefit space at the same time, but also to realize the relatively flat channels of the regional market plowing.
Balance of interests
As the saying goes, take people's money for others to eliminate disasters, channel vendors through a variety of qualifications, access to different agency qualifications, which is burdened with important sales targets, can be said to be the manufacturer of the "working"; and on the other hand, for the local influence of the powerful sellers, manufacturers are forced to performance On the other hand, for local influential sellers, manufacturers are forced to performance pressure, but also had to give back some preferential policies. The result of good cooperation between the two sides is *** win, and vice versa is *** hurt.
If manufacturers will be too much power below the hands of dealers, will not be conducive to the layout of management, and may disrupt the market, failed to achieve sales on the Pareto optimal; on the other hand, if the manufacturers of dealers of the management of the tight, it is likely that the terminal sales encounter obstacles to the market response in a timely manner, the general impact of the sales performance, the most tragic is likely to be lost to the support of the seller, and become a competitor's Resources. Zhang Baoli, Regional Manager of East China, said that their channel policy is based on the theme of "innovation, *** enjoyment, *** win", with "clear responsibility, commitment, objectivity and fairness, standardized management, moderate development, focus on support" as the management principle, to deepen the interaction, strengthen media cooperation, enhance the new Interaction, strengthen media cooperation, strengthen new media publicity, increase gifts, material supply, reporting system to ensure customer sales. Visible manufacturers for the dealer's support is spared no effort.
As a network vendor Flying Fish Star's core agents, Chongqing Vidocq Technology Co., Ltd. general manager An Feng believes that: 2011, the channel is facing great opportunities and great challenges, but in general the opportunities are still greater than the challenges. In addition to the recovery of the market, manufacturers for the dealer's support will also allow us to have better power and resources.
Game point of the regional division
The tier of dealers and the jurisdiction of the regional division is very necessary. Simply put, if in a city, two dealers can get goods at different prices, undoubtedly very great damage to the market, and too many dealers of the same level, will cause internal conflict between the sales, disturbing the market.
Through the region and level to set the dealer, give them different rights, and then string together to manage the product marketing channels. Generally speaking, most foreign brands adopt the "national general agent" model, some industry manufacturers will favor the provincial agency system, of course, domestic manufacturers are also happy to take the regional general agent model. Manufacturers always hope that the flat structure to facilitate the management, but the flat structure is bound to cause the terminal reach a limited coverage, thus weakening the role of the channel.
But there are some vendors will have new measures, such as Barracuda in 2011, the anti-spam, WEB application firewall, load balancing as its main three star products. In order to let the gold agents to do "specialization", Barracuda especially according to the product line of the channel partners were divided, "each type of channel is responsible for a product line, in order to achieve a more effective dissemination of knowledge system."
While it is said that the division according to the product line will avoid some crosstalk conflicts, and the management is more subdivided vertically, but when it comes to the overall solution, I don't know if it can efficiently integrate these resources.
Game point of the network channel
It is undeniable that the emergence of new channels has changed the traditional pattern, in the network equipment for the SMB market is even more so. Resellers facing channel retail seem to be suffering under the influence of low operating costs of the network channel. However, this is only a small factor, the traditional channel how to play their own advantages, manufacturers and how to leverage the network channel? Flying Fish Star Technology Marketing Director Tu Hong said Flying Fish Star used three ways to cover the user, the most important with the channel distributors, through a large number of partners, Flying Fish Star's products introduced to the user; the other is to cooperate with ISP operators, to explore new users; and finally the network marketing methods, including Jingdong, New Egg, Taobao, and Alibaba and other e-commerce platforms. In the process of selling in the network channel, the offer of products is unified to prevent collusion and reduce the impact on local dealers.
At present, many manufacturers for the network channel to take a parallel approach, even the distributor giant Digital China has also begun to establish its own platform for online marketing, the network channel is a good supplement to the traditional channels, but the replacement of the current model there are still some difficulties.
This is not only because of user purchasing habits, but more importantly, the local distributors use their own resources to better fulfill the sales task, with more initiative and a higher degree of deeper digging, especially in the second and third tier cities is more so.