IBM's Bizz and Fizz brings positive moves in the business

IBM India unveiled an exciting new incentive program for its business partner sales representative at Bizz & Fizz - 2003 - IBM's channel recognition event across four metros - Mumbai (March 21), Delhi (March 17), Chennai (March 13) and Kolkata (March 12).

It also announced its new, revamped channel sales executive incentive and loyalty program 'Blue Warrior 2003' at its Bizz & Fizz channel event held in New Delhi.

The Bizz & Fizz event is a business partner recognition event that is organized by IBM twice every year and is the largest awards ceremony ever in the IT industry.

The program is designed specifically for IBM's Personal Computing Division (notebooks, desktops, accessories) and Enterprise Systems Group (servers and storage) products.

This is a reward program for sales executives of IBM authorized tier 2 partners in India, including resellers, SIs and VARs.

The partner needs to register online to participate and receives an independent user ID and password. This user ID is applicable for all sales he/she engages in with IBM.

The authorized partner accumulates points on the sale of any IBM product (from the PCD and ESG portfolio) and there is a point system developed for various products.

These points allow him/her to engage in any purchase transactions through Fabmall - one of India's premier online retailing company.

Points won through the program can be redeemed against various items starting from a shirt to a holiday package, to CDs - music, to a refrigerator, to a music system or a car or bikes - all based on the points accumulated. The program duration is one year.

Anil Sethi, Country Manager (Channel), PCD sales, said "Our value for business initiatives read a lot of results in the last two quarters and now we plan to leverage it further by announcing similar schemes targeted at the B, C and D cities. The Blue Warrior is a part and parcel of our VFB initiative and the special of it is that all the brands have been merged together under a single scheme."

To increase its pressure in smaller cities, it has appointed close to 25 personal consultant, who would be looking after the relationship management for the channel in these cities.

Elaborating the Blue Warrior scheme Sethi further elaborated, " This scheme has been honed further to reduce the disparity level and this is a more accurate incentive scheme tool."

They have a dedicated auditing consultancy firm, which audits the claim made for this scheme. Sethi also said that IBM does not believe in retailing, rather it believes in authorized showrooms. These showrooms are owned by the resellers and IBM gives them the technical support along with interior aligned with the corporate identity of IBM.

Talking about the future Sethi that IBM is the only company, which has seen growth in the computer arena and felt that it was now time to optimize the growth further. For this IBM plans to tap as much potential in smaller cities and optimize the channel partners in the bigger cities. IBM is also planning for higher level of direct presence in all the cities.

DQW News Bureau