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Glimpses of AMD's Channel Initiative
By
P. K. Chatterjee
Mumbai, Jul 27, 2008
In the last quarter, Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), the well-known micro processor company, managed to reach a huge number of system builders (integrators) across India through the company's series of events in 36 cities -- named System Builder Yatra. The company organized the meets to reach the system integrator community, who are very close to the end users.
Why did the company decide to directly reach the system builders? Sandip Naik -- Head of AMD's Channel Sales in India explains, "There are more than 18000 system integrators in India, who are in the business of building white box PCs. It is very important from AMD point of view to get connected to them and educate them about AMD..."
Thus, AMD wants to create a platform to directly communicate the latest technology that it offers to every system builder. The company presented its roadmap and made the participants aware of the existing eco-system. This was in fact necessary after AMD's acquisition of ATI. The company's technology strength in microprocessors together with ATIs strengths in graphics, chipsets and consumer electronics needed a special and personalized demonstration to the system builders in small cities. It will obviously motivate them to build systems with complete AMD strength.
"It is important that the channel partners present these solutions to the end customers in an easy way, so that even the end customers can know the value of the product. We are trying to achieve that goal by educating the channel partners. We even wanted a feedback from them regarding the challenges they are facing in selling our products. These are a kind of interactive sessions that we are conducting with the channel partners in vernacular languages," says Naik.
It shows AMD's effort to understand the Indian market from the ground level -- to mould its products and form marketing strategies on basis of local needs and paradigms, eliminating all odds in every local market of the country.
To explain the system builders' benefits, Naik says, "Once they complete this training session, they are offered a certification from AMD. We wanted to make sure that the system integrators who are close to the end customers get directly captured by AMD. In tier 3, 4, 5 cities we did System Builders Yatra and in tier 1, 2 we did Dive 2008."
Contextually, Dive 2008 was mainly focused on educating partners in the Computer Processing Group (CPG), Retail and Graphics Processing Group (GPG) on AMDs launched products, namely, AMD Phenom range consisting of multi-core CPUs, ATI FireGL range of commercial level GPUs, Radeon 800 series of consumer GPUs and the AMD 780 series chipsets for motherboards. In the words of Naik, "It was one of the most successful events, and different from others, as it was purely an interactive session for channel community -- resellers and system integrators.
The company has been running yet another interesting programme for the channel partners, called 'AMD High Flyers'. Annual Challenge. It's a year-long programme for all channel partners, who have been contributing to the growth of AMD's business in India.
Naik elucidates, "This is an annual programme. We made sure through a structured approach that channel partners were excited about selling AMD all year long. There were annual target and quarterly targets too. It was well structured and communicated to all partners in advance. However, the surprising or undisclosed part in it is nobody knows where we are going to have the channel meet at the end of the program."
As far as the structured approach is concerned, AMD divided the program into 4 quarters. Now, the third quarter is running, and at the end of each quarter the winner partners are rewarded according to their achievements.
While focusing on the cutting edges of the company, Naik points out, "Ours is a customer focused company, and we make sure that our engineering talents are best used. We come up with products that are technically superior, and provide right kind of solution according to their needs. Secondly, it is the great partnership that we enjoy with our channel and OEM partners across the world. Thirdly, we make sure that our customers take the right things when they come to buy products. We are reaching out to the market and sending strong messages to the customer community, for example, for the first time, chess master Vishwanathan Anand has been brought on board globally to endorse AMD's range of products.
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that's really good that they wants to create a platform to directly communicate the latest technology for the system builder. |
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- Vishal Vaidya,
Digital World C, Indore
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its good that amd is taking steps to go to the roots
sirf advetising doesnt make something perform better but it is for compnies to educate all not only registered dealer about there technologies. what is better to buy name or technology? |
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- kunj,
Spectrum, indore
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Due to this initiative and clearly defined channel programms,S.I.'s from even smallar cities are also confidentally selling AMD ! |
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- Vivek Jain,
VR Computer, Indore
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Good Intiative! bcoz most of the channel partners are scary about selling AMD,they must first be convienced about co-exsitance of AMD,The AMD products are really powerfull and yet economic. They really give best power-performance,with reasonable rates which are most important for country like us. SIs should think differently then user bcoz when user will start asking for AMD there will not be any sense in selling,sale it with concepts and technologies.
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- Sunil Bhavsar,
Parth Systems, Ahmedabad
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It seems that Both Syste Integrators and End Users have got an Option apart from Intel where both Performance and Economy coexists!! |
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- Rahul Yadav,
SELE Pvt Ltd, Gorakhpur
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