Paul Chandler, the president and one of the founders of Victoria, B.C.-based Charter admitted that partner-to-partner collaboration, while talked about greatly in the industry is a very hard thing to accomplish in reality.
But that’s exactly what the 13 year-old networking and security integrator formerly known as Charter Telecom did when it partnered with Unity Telecom of Newmarket, Ont.
This alliance of two of Canada’s best known communications solution providers shows that when necessary channel partners can work with each other for customer benefit.
Charter’s strength was data solutions and they had a small voice practice, while Unity Telecom is the exact opposite. The other key factor for this partnership was that both are Avaya resellers. Charter was a Nortel shop. The two solution providers will begin to offer voice and data solutions to existing customers, while embarking on a marketing push to attract new clients. What made this partnership work in Chandler’s mind was both companies will be sharing accounts to better serve Charter’s voice customers and open up opportunities to bring the data portfolio to Unity’s customers. “This is definitely a partner to partner collaboration and it’s a good cross pollination of strengths. All in all a great fit,” he said.
Also part of the agreement is that Charter and Unity will share offices in Edmonton, and Charter’s voice technicians in Edmonton and Calgary will transfer to Unity.
Dave Sherry, the president of Unity Telecom, said Charter has the skills Unity can use on higher end data business. One of the keys for him was that the data business operates differently than the voice business so that sole objective for both companies is to better service the clients. “This is exactly a partner to partner collaboration arrangement Charter can be there for us on the data side, which is complex in some environments and we can be there for them on voice,” Sherry said.
Both executives agreed that partner to partner collaboration is a tough thing to accomplish.
Chandler said that partners are territorial and hesitant to enter these alliances when there is overlap. “I understand that to partner with someone who sold against me is hard that’s why this deal is magical in a sense because it’s so complimentary with the skill sets and the products,” he said.Sherry believes that protectionism is the problem. “People are sometimes leery of bringing in a partner and how that may look in front of the customer. Business owners perceive it as a weakness, while it should be a strength and it depends on the value add they bring in and that puts pressure on the customer relationship and that is why most of them are leery about it,” Sherry added.
Chandler and Sherry met and started discussing this partnership at a Westcon conference in the Bahamas. Sherry said that fact that both companies work with Westcon was also a plus.