Case Studies

A project to assess the role that integration partners have in the sale of very large network solutions in specific vertical industries. Channels Worldwide Group carried out a program of research that included interviews with some of Europe's leading system integrators and business process outsourcers.

The Challenge

Our client, a leading networking vendor had recently enjoyed some success winning contracts to deploy carrier-class solutions in major government infrastructure projects, such as transport.

However, the size and complexity of such projects means they are led by specialist prime contractors which their existing partner program was not designed to support without significant sell-with support from the vendor.

They needed to find out what role they and the different kinds of partners should play in these kinds of projects, then design the support infrastructure around these requirements.

Our Services

We conducted the research in two phases. Having identified the kinds of projects being conducted and the partners involved by analysing public data, we firstly conducted in-depth interviews with purchasing, IT and project management for the customers to map their decision-making process and find out what kind role what kind of partner could best provide at each stage.

A further series of interviews was then conducted with the most successful partners in winning such large infrastructure projects, to discover how they selected the vendors they worked with and our client could do to improve their chances of being selected.

Why This Matters

The research clearly identified the ideal channel model for this segment, based on a self-sufficient eco-system of prime- and sub-contracting partners. Other regions are now also looking at the same model for their public sector markets.