HP Split: Good Move for Channel Partners?

HP must detail to partners what the structural changes mean for them. As with any change, but especially with colossal upheavals, comes fear, uncertainty and doubt, or the FUD factor. HP chief Meg Whitman already is signaling the new entities—HP Inc. and HP Enterprise—will collaborate to ensure partners selling both lines don’t risk losing enablement, marketing support and financial incentives. How HP communicates those changes is equally as important as the modifications themselves.

Will the spinoffs open up new opportunities for partners? Probably. By freeing up its consumer-centric PC/printer business from its commercial-focused enterprise operation, each should perform better unencumbered, enabling partners to capitalize on the value of both. Partners selling and supporting both product lines likely will continue to do so no matter what the structural differences.

Will HP support become a larger issue? How HP supports the channel in pre-sales and post-sales situations will go a long way to ensuring that partners selling either one line or the other, or both, are confident the vendor has their backs. It will become increasingly important that partners understand how the changes affect their support teams.

Synergy. Weird word, no one really knows what it means, but in this case the question is whether PCs and printer sales will prompt higher-up-the-food-chain enterprise sales, or vice versa. It’s debatable. But if HP believes there’s connections between the two new companies that partners can exploit for competitive advantages and profits, it behooves the vendor to talk about those possibilities to partners.

What’s the play for HP’s distributors? There’s no word yet but at some point, the role HP’s distributors play in this deal has to change somewhat, also signaling that how partners interact with distributors is likely to be scrambled a bit, too. Making certain the messages are clear about benefits partners gain from working with distributors will be important.