Ignite Concept

Issue 1 – Winter 2016

Welcome to the very
first edition of Ignite
from Westcoast.
Ignite is the quarterly publication that has
been written for all Westcoast and
Hewlett Packard Enterprise Resellers,
VAR’s, ISV’s in fact anyone that has an
interest in anything remotely HPE or
Westcoast.
At the start of every Quarter Ignite will be
available for you to read interesting and
thought provoking articles, stay up to
speed on the latest industry trends, and
make sure you have sight of all of the
most relevant offers and promotions.
It will also be your link to Westcoast and
through it you’ll be able to access useful
tools, assets and documents designed to
make your everyday life just that little bit
simpler.
In This Issue:
Get the Credit You Deserve
Revolution Driving Evolution
WHSmith Case Study
Warranty is not enough
Monetising Mobility
Windows Server 2016 ROK

Get the credit you deserve
So you’ve spent hours on the
phone, chasing down every lead
you have. You’ve found that
perfect client, you know - the
one that needs a complete
overhaul of their entire
infrastructure as well as on-going
support for the next 5 years.
You’ve been on-site, done the graft
and found the right products to give
them exactly what they need.
They’re poised, pen in hand ready to
sign and then…….Bang! The deal
comes crashing down because your
credit limit isn’t high enough with your
chosen Distributor.
It sounds like the nightmare scenario
doesn’t it. You do all the groundwork
only to see a larger competitor with
stronger credit ratings take the
business you have spent weeks or even
months preparing.
According to a recent survey that we
at Westcoast carried out this is a
situation that quite a lot you have
faced on more than one occasion.
So whose fault is it?
Is it us?
Well I suppose Distribution needs to take
our share of the blame…Our job after all is
to make sure that the Channel has access
to the products you need.
That having been said though let’s not
forget the huge financial risk that we
take, buying in hundreds of thousands, if
not millions of pounds worth of product
and storing it in very expensive
warehouses that employ hundreds of
people to manage and ship it.
I know, I know… it’s not your problem I
hear you say, and you’re right of course
it’s not. But the fact of the matter is that
every penny spent on stock and the
infrastructure to control and ship it is a risk,
and that risk has an effect of what credit
terms are available to our clients.
Is it the Vendors?
The constant pressure to deliver Qtr. on
Qtr. growth sometimes leads to a drive to
overstock the Channel, draining the
financial resources of Distributors and
reducing their ability to offer credit terms
to those that need it due to the afore
mentioned need to mitigate risk.

Is it a problem? Yes
Does this make them the bad guy in all
this? No it doesn’t – they spend millions in
R&D and production to make what we
do possible.
Is it likely to change? Perhaps on the day
the Martians attack and life as we know it
ends…but, to be frank, not a day before.
Is it you?
Well of course it’s not…For the most
part the Channel is chocked full of
hard-working, conscientious Resellers
and Services Providers simply looking
to deliver a great service to their
clients and grow in a challenging
market.
No that cabin will have to wait, we
need to a way of making that deal
happen – A way of allowing us to
deliver you the products and services
you need and for you to move IT from
the CAPEX column to the OPEX
column, without having to sell your soul
or pay over the odds rates for a credit
line.
Here comes the pitch…
After the results of the survey we sat
down and grasped the nettle. It was
obvious that we needed to be the
ones to come up with the answer and
we think we might just have done it.…
The truth is that everyone is to blame and
nobody is to blame and, to quote the
former US president Bill Clinton, “It’s the
Economy Stupid”.
Client’s on the whole are looking avoid
any large Capital Expenditure until the
effects of the June vote to leave the EU
become clearer
So what do we do then? Shut up shop, go
and live a life of quiet contemplation offgrid
in a cabin in the Alps? As pleasant as
that sounds I’m sure that, like me, and
despite the fact that we often complain
about the daily grind…you probably
quite enjoy the hustle and bustle of the
business world and IT in particular.

Revolution driving Evolution
If history has taught us anything it’s
that those that feel comfortable
standing still, those that are not
stretching themselves & seeking
to advance to the next level are in
fact already moving backwards.
That has never been truer than
right now for IT Resellers.
In fact the term IT Reseller is probably
already outdated as any company with
designs to still be around in 5 years
should already consider themselves a
Service Provider looking to be far more
than a place where their customers
come every few years to upgrade their
IT Infrastructure.
Technology is now so woven into the
fabric of business that most companies
would be unable to function without it,
and yet the level of knowledge and
understanding of this vital thread is
remarkably low within the UK SMB
sector, a sector that makes up almost
80% of the available market.
There are literally tens of thousands of
small to medium businesses, whose very
existence is reliant on technology that
they don’t understand…instead they
expect us, their IT guru’s and modern
day alchemists to understand it on their
behalf and advise them on how to best
wield this powerful weapon.
If we simply stand still, if we are content
with just replacing tin and upgrading
software when asked to do so then we
are failing our customers and risking
both our futures.
Let’s take a closer look at a typical
SMB company of 2010. Chances are
they were between 5 and 50
employees, had relatively simple IT
requirements on the face of things
and maybe had a part-time tech
head that made sure their modest
infrastructure kept chugging away in
a back room somewhere.
They may do the occasional back-up
and, when pushed, might even
upgrade software from time-to-time
but on the whole there was most likely
a “If it ain’t broke then don’t fix it”
mentality towards technology and as
long as email and internet were
working then all was right with the
world…Oh how things have changed
since then.
Even the smallest of SMB’s now has
the expectation of large Enterprise
level IT resources to power their
business and the Channel is
expected to do far more than simply
refresh tin and offer new software,
with those not able to offers services
alongside this function finding
themselves losing out to those that
can.
For those in the Channel that have
been slow to recognise this change
or have struggled to adapt to the
shifting expectations life has been
and will continue to be very tough.

This change has been, in a large part,
driven by the emergence of the Cloud.
The ability for companies to access the
enterprise level technology they desire
without the need for power-hungry,
expensive and bulky IT infrastructure
was and continues to be a compelling
message, however concerns around
security and network availability have
seen may hold off adoption leading to
birth of the Hybrid Cloud.
“Hybrid Cloud”…The IT industry loves its
buzz words and acronyms and this is
the latest, but don’t let that cause you
to scoff. It’s a logical and very effective
way of getting the best of both
worlds…Keep all your mission critical
applications on premise and access
ancillary services via the Cloud.
Sounds like a perfect scenario
doesn’t it, but we come back to
that nagging problem of
knowledge, and that’s where the
Channel can make a new niche for
themselves by becoming an
outsourced IT department, in
essence evolving from a box shifter
into a Managed Service Provider.
Check out the Westcoast
EasyConnect Virtual Presenter to
learn everything you need to know
about this revolutionary solution.
Westcoast Virtual Presenter – EasyConnect EC200a

Warranty is not enough
Warranty protects hardware but HPE support keeps businesses running
Think IT support services will
break your customer’s budget?
Think again. Chances are that
you’ll spend more per day on a
morning cup of coffee than on
HPE Support Services.
Take a look at the HPE Services session
delivered at the recent Ignite Partner
Symposium
Are your customers being
adequately covered under
warranty? Warranty is a limited
offering only providing:
• Monday-Friday 8am to 5pm
• Next business day response –
Reasonable endeavours
• No software support
• Selected options are not
covered by server
• If a fault occurs on Friday
morning, it may be Monday
afternoon before an engineer
goes to the site
Take a look at the session delivered
by HPE Services Sales Manager Paul
Stancombe at the Westcoast Ignite
Partner Symposium this year.
Then you can decide for yourself if
customer piece of mind is worth
more than a cup of coffee…