CA refocuses on mid-market

Vendor chases fast-growing SMEs.

Enterprise software vendor CA Technologies said it would renew its channel strategy to win sales in the fast-growing mid-market.

"CA needs high growth," said Klasie Holtzhausen. "The enterprise is growing in single digits but the mid-market is growing in double digits."

CA's string of acquisitions had brought new opportunities and resellers, which the vendor was still assessing.

"We are now in the planning phase to find the routes to market. As we refine our strategy for the next financial year we are going to determine the resellers we want to work with," Holtzhausen said.

The vendor would also look at recruiting resellers that meet certain criteria - "someone that can give us access or skills. Both are very important to a vendor," Holtzhausen said.

While the SME market was a focus for 2011, there were no restrictions on where partners could sell, Hotzhausen said. The vendor has a strong direct sales division that handles named accounts in the enterprise market, which account for 70 percent of revenues.

CA invested resources in named enterprise accounts, although some were held by partners, Holtzhausen said.

One of CA's goals was to boost sales of its managed services platform which integrates management of the desktop, server, network and data centre environments. CA was targeting SMEs with the recent Nimsoft acquisition, a managed services platform that was easier to deploy.

Licensing was available in perpetual or term agreements.

CA was making investments in channel education, sales and marketing. It hoped to attract resellers with a "very strong" partner rebate program and marketing development funds, Holtzhausen said.