Tech Data Canada has announced the implementation of Cisco’s “Try and Buy” program, a sales tool program designed for authorized partners that allows them to test and deploy Cisco products before actually purchasing them.
Greg Myers, vice-president of marketing for the IT distributor, says Tech Data is the first distributor in Canada to implement the Cisco “Try and Buy” program. Tech Data’s US parent company has had the reseller program in place over the last several quarters.
“Cisco’s focus on partnering with Tech Data Canada is to grow in the SMB market place,” Myers said. “They wanted to penetrate the SMB space by offering this program as a sales tool for partners to utilize so they can get more customers evaluating their products and choosing Cisco.”
Canadian Tech Data resellers can utilize the Cisco “Try and Buy” program to request and test Cisco products on a 60-day trial basis. Myers says the purpose of this program is to help ensure partners are being smart and educated about their purchase.
“This program simplifies the whole user experience because partners can test and deploy the product in their own environments and they don’t need to worry about packing it up and sending it back, or buying another product,” Myers said.
To get involved in this program, all partners need to do, Myers says, is get in touch with their Tech Data rep so an order form can then be filled out and submitted for the requested product. Tech Data will then ship the desired product to the partner. If for any reason the partner is unsatisfied with the product, or they just decide they no longer want it, they can send it back to Cisco within the 60-day time frame. On the other hand, if partners decide to keep the product an invoice will automatically be sent to them.
“This is another valuable tool for the reseller community because it helps keep the sales process focused and it helps move the sale along quite nicely,” Myers says. “Resellers will find it’s quite a seamless program and it’s easy to work with.”
Myers encourages all partners to take advantage of this new program because he says it will help improve their overall sales effectiveness.
“There’s no way resellers can replicate this program on their own,” he adds. “Cisco provides these products and Tech Data Canada is the one helping to execute and aggregate all of this.”