Magazines Archives - 2009 August

Fujitsu Accelerator drives channel partners’ revenue
Story 11 - Retail Technology

THE US arm of Tokyo-based technology vendor Fujitsu Limited has extended its accelerator channel programme to the retail sector. This is expected to “accelerate” revenue for the company’s channel partners, namely the value-added resellers (VARs), independent software vendors (ISVs) and distributors — the groups which the programme was initially designed for.

Said William Buie, senior vice-president of channel, alliance and system integrator sales, Fujitsu America: “ Unlike some retail-technology vendors, our goal is to fully support industry VARs, ISVs and distributors — not compete against them.

“We have the right products with the right price, performance and service options to drive profitable partnerships with resellers. That’s why we’ve launched the Fujitsu Accelerator programme to drive increased awareness and sales growth [among] our channel partners.”

Incorporating sales-and-marketing support in the form of secure communications, flexible customer-financing options and business-lead generation, the programme is in line with the company’s retail-solution sales growth strategy, Buie maintained.

It is well received by the company’s partners so far. Said Jeremey Fass, executive vice-president, AVF Consulting (a Fujitsu partner): “It’s refreshing to see a large technology vendor like Fujitsu bring a true partnership approach to its retail channel programmer.

“As a new reseller of Fujitsu pointof- sale hardware, [AVF is] very pleased with the technical, sales and marketing support” offered by Fujitsu, which is “working with us to grow both our businesses, an essential trait in a quality technology partner”.

According to Fujitsu, this initiative also ties in with the company’s Retail- Ready programme, launched last June to allow ISVs to gain further exposure by leveraging the Fujitsu brand.

Said Buie: “ISVs are very important to the continued success of Fujitsu. And, as part of our larger channel initiatives, we want to introduce programmes that enable ISV growth when partnered with Fujitsu.

“Retailers know that these ISVs have a successfully qualified scope of software offerings for our hardware [that] will help boost our RetailReady partners’ sales as well.”

The survey is the first conducted by Google on digital lifestyle product consumption.

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