STORING UP OPPORTUNITY
Mass. “The deployment of local area networks
and broadband has helped drive storage
needs to unprecedented levels, and a growing
number of manufacturers have been crafting
storage products and services to meet the often
conflicting SMB needs of performance, ease of
use, and affordability,” he adds. Vendors from
IBM to HP to EMC and smaller players have
boosted their SMB-specific offerings in an attempt to cash in on smaller firms’ increased
appetite for storage.
Market research firm AMI-Partners Inc. of
New York concurs with IDC that demand is
strong for storage among SMBs. AMI expects
storage spending among SMBs to increase by
18 percent to 20 percent over the next few
years. This syncs with findings that U.S. and
Canadian SMB IT spending is the strongest it’s
been in three years. According to 2006 data
from Forrester Research Inc. of Cambridge,
Mass., American SMBs were expected to boost
IT budgets by an average 7. 2 percent last year,
up from 4. 8 percent in 2005. Storage is at the
top of many of these firms’ shopping lists.
“SMBs are realizing they have a lot of important data, and they can’t afford to lose it,” says
Sajai Krishnan, general manager of the Store-Vault division of Network Appliance Inc., in
Sunnyvale, Calif. “As they store more data digitally, they have discovered that ad hoc
processes—[such as] buying a disk at Office
Depot—are not enough. They are starting to
look to VARs, seeking advice.”
As a result, an increasing number of resellers are adding storage to their array of products and services, says Krishnan. “They see
this as a big growth opportunity,” he observes.
“It’s like a perfect storm. Storage needs are increasing. The technologies have become
cheaper. The demand is meeting the supply,
and the VARs have the opportunity to be right
in the middle, because there is no one else
who can educate these customers.”
THE NITTY GRITTY
As with any major technology sale, SMBs need
a lot of guidance when it comes to choosing a
storage solution. According to Zammett, Hori-
“IT’S LIKE A PERFECT STORM.
STORAGE NEEDS ARE INCREASING. THE TECHNOLOGIES HAVE
BECOME CHEAPER. THE DEMAND IS MEETING THE SUPPLY,
AND THE VARS HAVE THE OPPORTUNITY TO BE RIGHT IN THE
MIDDLE.”
SAJAI KRISHNAN
NETWORK APPLIANCE INC.
zon Tek’s average sales cycle is about 75 days
for a high-end SAN or network-attached storage (NAS) product. “That’s comfortable,” says
Zammett. “It gives us enough time to determine what the customer wants and really
needs, as well as the best fit for
technology and budget.”
Blake H. Dowling, director of
sales for Aegis Computer Services, a Microsoft CRM and storage solution reseller in Tallahassee, Fla., reports similarly long
sales cycles. Dowling resells the
BizGuardian data recovery and
backup appliance manufactured
by Breece Hill LLC of Louisville,
Colo. BizGuardian is a good fit
for companies with multiple
servers, which tend to be those with 20 to 40
employees and above, he says. The average
BizGuardian sale runs about $20,000, which
is a big deal for a company that spends maybe
$100,000 a year on IT. “That’s 20 percent of
their budget,” Dowling notes. It’s no wonder
Aegis’ typical sales cycle for BizGuardian runs
90 days and up.
Horizon Tek provides pre- and post-sales
support as well as tier one help desk services
to its customers. Such offerings reassure
SMBs, says Zammett. Smaller companies have
finally realized just how much is at stake when
making storage decisions. If they were to lose
their data, chances are they would be out of
business. So a VAR’s first task is to set the de-
cision maker’s mind at ease that their data
will be safe and secure no matter what, says
Krishnan.
Some SMB customers want to discuss storage technologies in detail. For example, many
SMB managers have heard about hot topics
such as iSCSI SANs, an IP-based SAN option
that purports to be particularly effective at
storing data associated with messaging applications such as Microsoft Exchange, while being more cost-effective than a traditional Fibre
Channel SAN. Aegis’ Dowling wishes he could
spend less time discussing such topics with
his customers. “If I didn’t have to do that, it
would make my life easier. I usually do have
to get into the nuts and bolts, especially if I
am selling to an IT manager,” he says.
Many SMB decision makers, however,
have little interest in the finer points of
NAS, direct-attached storage
(DAS), and SAN. “That is
mumbo jumbo for most SMBs,”
says NetApp’s Krishnan.
Resellers can help clarify mat-
ters, he observes, by figuring
out exactly how much the cus-
tomer wants and needs to know.
Either way, asking lots of
questions up front to determine
the customer’s priorities is im-
portant. Is it absolute data pro-
tection? Price? Having the most
current technology? Once you know exactly
what is driving the customer’s storage need,
says Krishnan, you can adjust your pitch
accordingly. As always, the initial process of
gaining your customer’s trust is the foundation
for a mutually profitable relationship.
SWEETENING THE DEAL
With IT dollars tight, most SMBs like to feel
their purchasing choices are “future proof”—
capable of meeting their needs for many years
to come. So many VARs find that selling an
SMB storage solution goes smoother when they
pitch an appliance combining multiple storage
technologies (such as NAS and SAN) in one
box. NetApp’s StoreVault S500, for example,
FOR MORE INFORMA TION EMC INSIGNIA STORAGE PRODUCTS FOR SMBs: WWW.EMCINSIGNIA.COM
