VB: What do you use to measure satisfaction in your company?
Borman: We use an outside company to survey several thousand channel partners in every geography; it is a pretty extensive survey that is done twice a year. We look at ease of doing business, competitive margins, support, products, everything.
Kafkarkou: Partners care. Make no mistake. They have as much passion as we do. We appreciate that, and we're generally grateful for every minute they give us.
The Players
Mike Borman is general manager of IBM Global Business Partners, a position he assumed 14 months ago. Since that time, he has overseen a major restructuring and consolidation of the company's SMB programs and product offerings. He is responsible for 90,000 Business Partners worldwide. A longtime IBMer, Borman began his career at Big Blue in the role of a programmer, then went on to hold a variety of systems engineering, sales, marketing and management positions.
George Kafkarkou, senior vice president of world channel operations, sales and marketing at CA, was brought over from Europe, where he was general manager for indirect sales, to create programs and policies that would improve partner satisfaction. A 20-year CA veteran, Kafkarkou helped to create the "channel-preferred sales model," which aims to eliminate channel conflict. "CA needs to step up and do a better job helping VARs," he told us in an interview last year.
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