Pick New Technology Vendor Partnerships Wisely

In addition to reviewing how committed a vendor is to its channel sales, how many reps they have in the territory and the vendor's competition, resellers need to look at the buy-in, said M&S Technologies' Stenovitch. M&S primarily works in the network infrastructure, security and wireless technology areas, he said. Often, vendors want resellers to get extensive training for sales and engineers and then buy demo gear, he said. Stenovitch said his firms' strategy is to bring on smaller vendors that complement the current portfolio. A significant investment won't be made until the vendor and technology has proven to be a winner. "We want to bring our clients bleeding edge technology but they want to know how viable the company is," Stenovitch said. "They want to know if the company is going to be around in a few years."