Samsung Hopes Vertical Drive Will Bolster Channel Opportunity

Samsung has taken significant steps in growing its B2B business over the past year with new enterprise-focused mobile product offerings, but said it will continue that business drive through the channel by targeting vertical markets.

Richard Hutton, director of channel marketing at Samsung, told a crowd of solution providers at XChange 2015 -- which is hosted by CRN's publisher, The Channel Company -- that vertical markets like retail and education are playing a big role as the South Korean company continues to move forward with its channel program.

"We try to go to market in a vertical fashion, and that [impacts] how we set up our technical teams, and our end-user teams," he said. "One of the key things … is putting channel-ready solutions in place. We're not out there competing with you every day, we're out there working with our channel partners."

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Samsung Business executives, which announced in March they are looking to grow the company's B2B sales from 15 percent of the company's global revenue to 40 percent, targeted niche markets in particular with vertical-specific packages for channel partners to use while going to market in the education and retail space.

For education, Samsung showed off its "classroom in a box" product, which combines content from publishers like McGraw-Hill for curriculum-based digitized solutions on bundles of 30 Android-based tablets or Chromebooks. These education-slated products are also enhanced by site visits from Samsung reps to ensure the devices are set up in the classroom correctly, and professional development courses for teachers, according to the company.

The new bundle package, available through distribution partners until the end of September, has had a fast pickup rate among partners so far, said Hutton. "Classrooms are adopting technology at a very rapid pace -- it’s a huge growth market for our partners selling into that space, primarily around Chromebook and our Android tablet platform," he said. "What was also really important was the content they are using to look at on those devices."

Another vertical-targeted bundle offers point of sale (POS) services through building cash register solutions on Android tablet products. This solution adds receipt printers and cash drawers to the 9.7-inch Galaxy A and 10.1-inch Galaxy Tab 4 Android tablets to augment channel device sales in the SMB retail space.

David Vu, cloud sales and technical consultant for Knoxville, Tenn.-based Samsung partner Gravity Networks -- an MSP that specializes in data backup management and managed system monitoring -- stressed that vertical niche markets are particularly important for Samsung in the mobile arena, where competitors like Apple are also making headway.

"There's a huge opportunity out there for verticals, such as health care and education," he said. "If Apple can do it in health care and some education, why not Samsung? I can see tablets being used for some education purposes. It was good that they also brought in training teachers -- that's a place where we as a partner will be doing the training, and it's good that Samsung will be there to back us up."

The company also outlined some of the other previously previewed features it has implemented in its channel program, such as a content syndication tool allowing partners to customize and deliver content for customers; automated marketing tools to help deliver campaigns; and social syndication tools, like white papers, blogs and case studies to drive engagement between partners and businesses.

"Overall, we've added better resources from a tools and human resources standpoint, to achieve what we set out to do with the channel," said Hutton. "We're a channel company, so if the channel doesn't sell our products, we don't sell our products."