Success is never guaranteed in business, and neither are sales. The sale of products and services will ebb and flow with shifting economic and operating conditions. The constant, though, is that all businesses must strive for profitability and growth, ensuring they have the resources to meet customer expectations and remain ahead of the competition.
Many solution providers will say growth is hard. Finding new customers, selling prospects on new technologies, creating and maintaining value through value-add services, and ensuring the quality of product and services are all tremendous challenges. Many solution providers often feel as if they’re running in place rather than gaining forward momentum.
Yet, solution providers – including Samsung’s partners – often underrate their own growth performance and future growth potential.
Samsung is partnering with The 2112 Group to study and understand the growth characteristics and performance of its partners. Through 2112’s Growth Calculator, customized for Samsung Business, the vendor was able to determine that the average acceptable rate of growth among Samsung partners is 18 percent annually. This is an important figure, as it’s slightly higher than the channel average of 11 percent to 15 percent.
Some Samsung solution providers might say that 18 percent growth is too lofty a target. After all, analyst firm Gartner is forecasting IT spending to decline 5.5 percent this year, and even in a good year, the IT market grows only from 2 to 5 percent. Growing an IT business at a double-digit rate would seem exceptional, even under the best of conditions.
Or would it? What 2112 has found through its research is that acceptable growth rates aren’t very accurate indicators of partner performance. Solution providers are actually exceeding their own goals and expectations. Interestingly enough, both the acceptable and aspirational rates of growth fall short of actual results – and by a wide margin.
Samsung partners’ three-year historic growth rate, according to the 2112 Growth Calculator, is 39 percent – a rate more than double the acceptable growth rate and just 5 points shy of being twice the aspirational growth rate.
Despite reporting challenges in marketing, sales, investment funding, evolving technologies, and shifting market conditions, Samsung partners aren’t just leading the market; they’re accelerating past the channel at large, and for a number of reasons. Through the 2112 Growth Calculator, Samsung partners were asked about their three-year growth target, or what they want their revenue to be in 2018. On the average, Samsung partners’ three-year aspirational growth rate is 22 percent, 7 percent higher than the channel’s aspirational average and 4 percent higher than their acceptable rate of growth.
Most significantly, Samsung partners know that they should be selling more than just one product. The average Samsung partner sale involves at least two other products. While the most common products are peripherals, Samsung partners are selling a lot of networking appliances, virtualization software, and business applications as well. Moreover, Samsung partners are augmenting their sales engagements with professional and managed services, which amplifies the total deal value.
The lesson coming out of the 2112 Growth Calculator analysis is that Samsung partners are doing better than they think – and better than they think they’re capable of. And, in many cases, they’re achieving high rates of growth without business or strategic plans. In a future blog, we’ll talk about how planning for success will result in even higher performance rates.
