a&s talked to Daniel Wan, Channel Marketing Manager for the U.K. and Ireland at Honeywell Security to discuss the current status of channel players in the security market. Honeywell would like to create real benefits for their prestigious partners to help them weather the price competition in the market, not only through products, but also through their channel program.
a&s talked to Daniel Wan, Channel Marketing Manager for the U.K. and Ireland at Honeywell Security to discuss the current status of channel players in the security market. Honeywell would like to create real benefits for their prestigious partners to help them weather the price competition in the market, not only through products, but also through their channel program.
"The Honeywell Channel Partner Program is an EMEA wide initiative designed to support and reward installers and systems integrators for their loyalty to Honeywell, and ensure that they are well placed to sell our products and solutions by providing them with training and support."
Q: What is the biggest challenge for distribution partners in the current market?
A: I think the major problem for our distribution partners is how they can differentiate between all the manufacturers and vendors. There are multiple manufacturers in the market, and each manufacturer has its own portfolio. So where should the distributors start? How do they pick the right solution? The most challenging part for them is how to easily define and differentiate between different products, and find out what the value is in one particular solution.
Daniel Wan, Channel Marketing Manager,
U.K. and Ireland, Honeywell Security
Q: What is the core value of Honeywell, for your channel partners?
A: I would say not many manufacturers are able to offer such a wide portfolio, ranging from video surveillance, access control, and intruder systems. The key message to our partners and systems integrators is the power of our integration. You can have vendors that work within a certain discipline, but it is hard to find one that can offer a complete integrated solution. That is our core strength, providing solutions from the entry level through to the enterprise level. We have strength within access control, intrusion, and video surveillance, but we can also work across each discipline, from top to the bottom, in terms of integration. For Honeywell, we don't have products alone - we also have the integration capability and services to back them up. These are as equally important as the products themselves.
We support our integrator partners from entry-level to enterprise solutions, helping them to achieve higher value and higher margin business, which benefits all distributors and systems integrators in the longer term. Currently, the security market is very price-driven, leading to a demand for entry-level, commoditized products. Honeywell's philosophy is to support these entry-level customers and help them scale up, expand, and migrate to system-led solutions that provide more benefits.
Q: What is so special about Honeywell's channel partner program?
A: The Honeywell Channel Partner Program is an EMEA wide initiative designed to support and reward installers and systems integrators for their loyalty to Honeywell, and ensure that they are well placed to sell our products and solutions by providing them with training and support.
The Channel Partner Program consists of four levels: Registered Security Partner, Bronze, Silver, and Gold. How we tier our partners depends on how well they are trained on our solutions, and not just about how much they use our products. For instance, if they are trained and actively install our intrusion detection, access control and video surveillance solution, then we rate them very high in the program as they are the type of systems integrators we really want to support. We can trust them to deliver a good experience to end users using Honeywell integrated solutions.
A common complaint from some systems integrators regarding other vendors' partner programs is they don't see the benefits from being involved in the scheme. To tackle this, the Honeywell Channel Partner Program provides benefits and support at all levels. For instance, systems integrators will want to know if they will receive a certain level of technical support depending on their tier. In our program, partners know that when they pick up the phone, and they will get prioritized support from Honeywell.
The program also provides added benefits in terms of service support. Within the program, our partners have the assurance of knowing they have access to an advance replacement service. If they grow their business by working with Honeywell, we will reward them with a growth rebate no matter which tier they belong to. In addition to that, partners within the program are also able to accrue funds for marketing development to promote their business. The benefits of the program are very wide ranging.
Q: Besides the program, how do you strengthen your relationship with systems integrators?
A: Honeywell does this a little differently in different regions. In the U.K., we run regional road shows for our partners. These events provide the opportunity to have in-depth conversations with our partners, and build that close relationship while presenting them with our latest technologies.
We have also recently launched the Honeywell Specifier Program, designed for security consultants, planners, and specifiers. We have a unique understanding of their needs and our aim is to help them deliver the most cost-effective, value-added solutions to their customers on time, every time.