Cogeco Peer 1 targeting VAR community

Managed hosting specialist Cogeco Peer 1 has set its sights on expanding its channel base and building relationships with mid-tier partners that are looking for help meeting their customer's hybrid cloud needs.

The firm has identified a band of partners that could benefit from its offering and the provision of training and support to help get them in a position to sell a hosted solution with confidence.

Dave Tracey, EMEA channel sales manager at Cogeco Peer 1, said that it would be focusing on growing its indirect business next year and identifying new relationships was a big part of that effort.

"We have been doing a lot of work on how we can increase channel revenue across our business. We have identified that there are a couple of key areas where there is an opportunity. We have a well established and well performing partner base in the ecommerce sector, so we are looking to continue with that success and expand on it. But also we are looking into addressing the IT VAR channel," he said.

"We have identified that the larger VARs either have their own capability or they have a partnerships with an incumbent organisation already. We think there is an opportunity in the tier of partner slightly below that because they recognise the need to shift the conversation they are having with their customers from an on-premise tin focused conversation into a hybrid or hosted and cloud based conversation," he added.

Some of those resellers have a gap in skills and the firm will come with a proposition to help bridge that gap and train sales staff and uncover customer opportunities.

"There are a lot of companies that will give an overview of their portfolio and say 'here you are now go out to market and sell it'. We are taking the approach of doing that but also helping the partner uncover opportunities in their customer base and then supporting them in the sales engagement," he said.

Tracey said that it was at the early stages of developing those channel relationships but it, "had tested the theory and there is significant appetite" and it would be starting to reach out to more contacts to get the proposition in front of more VARs.

Cogeco is also growing its channel team so it has the ability to support the engagements when they start to take-off.