In an exclusive interview with CRN, Michael Green, general manager of Intel’s new North America partner group, says his top priorities are growing the chipmaker’s business with partners and familiarizing its employees with new roles as he campaigns for greater efficiency in the semiconductor sector. partner programs of the giant.

After becoming head of Intel’s U.S. distribution nine months ago, Michael Green is taking on an expanded role leading a new organization that will put him in charge of the chipmaker’s relationships with its northern partners. Americans.

Intel exclusively told CRN that Green, a 25-year Intel veteran, will become general manager of the North America Partner Group next month and will lead relationships with distributors, national solution providers, integrators national systems integrators, global systems integrators and U.S.-based retailers. States.

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Green will report directly to Greg Ernst, corporate vice president and general manager of Intel’s Americas global sales and accounts organization.

“I’m extremely excited,” Green told CRN in an interview Friday. “There are obviously a lot of changes happening here, but partners remain the most important part of our business. We do not exist without them, and it is our duty to ensure that they succeed.

Green’s fledgling organization is part of a new regional partner engagement model announced earlier this month by Intel’s new global distribution chief, Dave Guzzi. The goal is to standardize the role of the channel for each region, including North America, and provide more consistency for partners, especially those with an international presence.

Intel moved Green and Guzzi into their new channel leadership roles amid other changes the chipmaker has recently made to partner resources and staffing. These changes included a streamlined Market Development Fund program, an undisclosed number of job cuts and a reduction in the number of countries covered by partner investments.

The changes came after Intel told its employees in August that it would reduce Sales and Marketing Group (SMG) costs by more than 35 percent by reducing headcount and simplifying programs, such as CRN exclusively reported. The cuts and changes are part of a broader initiative by Intel to cut more than 15,000 jobs, or 15% of its total workforce, and more than $10 million in costs in response to deterioration of financial conditions.

“We need to start growing our business again”

In his interview with CRN, Green said his top priorities were growing Intel’s business with partners, familiarizing employees in its new partner group in North America with new roles, and preparing staff to put implement upcoming changes to Intel’s partner programs.

“We need to start growing our business again,” he said, highlighting opportunities the company sees with partners to refresh PC and server fleets with its processors.

Green promised to ensure that relationships with partners are mutually beneficial.

“The reality is that when our partners grow their business, we grow our business. So, through a full range of programs, product launches or the way we interact with our sales staff and then with end customers, we all have to grow and so that is the number one priority,” a- he declared.

On the personnel side, Green said his team “will have new people and new roles that didn’t exist before.”

“We need to let them know. We need to make them understand who their new customers are and prepare them to make the changes we are going to implement over the next month and a half,” he said.

An effort for greater efficiency in partnership programs

Beyond the changes to Intel’s partner resources and channel leadership structure announced by Guzzi earlier this month, Green said the company is still working on other changes to its partner programs at over the next few weeks.

“I will say that our programs are always evolving as our business evolves. And I think on a macroeconomic level, the last two years have been more difficult than we expected, and so the programs have been adapted to that. But as we have always done with our investments, our programs see a positive development when the market begins to recover,” he said.

While Green said there would be “very little change” in Intel’s broader distribution strategy, he said the semiconductor giant needed to “become more efficient in the way we put ourselves on the market.” the market” and in the way the chipmaker manages its programs.

This push toward greater efficiency will focus on market development funds, so-called “comp meet” opportunities where price adjustments are made within competitive bids, as well as how Intel pays and sells. engages with a partner’s “end sales force,” according to Green.

“There’s talk about cost cutting and maybe some workforce reductions that have been publicly announced, but the reality is we need to be more effective with our customers. They feel it. We feel it. And we want to make it easier to get to market, working with Intel, (compared to) some of our competitors,” he said.

Disty Exec believes green can bring more balance to programs

An executive at an Intel channel partner said that while he is “saddened” by all the people who have left SMG due to job cuts, he believes the new role as leader of the northern channel -American is a great opportunity for Green to improve Intel’s work with its partners.

“I like the idea of ​​Mike being responsible for all the channel partners and all the different layers of how Intel goes into business,” said Kent Tibbils, vice president of marketing at ASI, a distributor based in Fremont, California.

Tibbils said he hopes Green can address issues where there is an imbalance in how benefits such as discount programs and compensation opportunities work with different partners.

“There has been an imbalance between how this information works and how it is processed. So one group of customers might have a different set of priorities and then another group might have something different. This can create an imbalance between different customers,” he said.

Although Tibbils said he has discussed these issues with Green in the past, he believes the Intel channel chief should have more influence in resolving them in his new role.

“I think he will have more capabilities to meet these challenges,” Tibbils said.

As an undisclosed number of SMG employees leave Intel and others take on new partner-facing roles and responsibilities, Tibbils said ASI has faced some challenges in its work with Intel over the past few years. of the last two months.

“There have been some issues with touchpoints and understanding who you go to now for different things. And people’s workload is changing. Their responsibilities evolve. So they’re going to have to go through this adjustment process,” he said.

However, Tibbils said, Intel has gone through transitions like this before and he believes changes such as the creation of Green’s new team in North America will bring positive changes.

“We are confident that once this transition is complete, things will return to normal. It’s positive from my point of view,” he said.

Green’s new role comes amid other leadership changes at the channel

With Green becoming general manager of the North America partner-wide organization, he assumes responsibilities for U.S.-based global systems integrators and retailers, in addition to domestic systems integrators, solution providers nationals and distributors with whom he already worked as head of Intel’s American channel. .

Green became general manager of U.S. partner sales and programs in February after his predecessor, Jason Kimreywas selected by Intel to lead the North America partner sales and sales organization, which was a newly formed group at the time.

This group, whose partner functions have now been absorbed into Green’s North America team, had merged the U.S. channel and partner team that Kimrey previously led with teams managing relationships with large American companies, American communications service providers as well as Canadian customers and partners.

Kimrey said he I left Intel last month because he accepted “an early retirement opportunity.” The company had offered voluntary departures and early retirement packages to its employees as part of its first phase aimed at reducing its workforce by 15,000 people.

These changes in the leadership of Intel’s channel channels in the United States and North America coincided with two changes in the head of Intel’s global channel this year.

In January, Intel named Trevor Vickers to succeed John Kalvin as Group Managing Director of Global Partners and Support. But Vickers’ tenure was cut short when Intel selected Guzzi, a three-year Intel veteran with decades of experience in solution provider leadership roles, to take over as vice president of global partners in October.

Vickers was moved to an undisclosed role within Intel, according to the company.

Before becoming head of the U.S. channel in February, Green served as general manager of Intel’s U.S. retail team for more than six years. Between these and other jobs in operations and pricing during his 25-year career at Intel, Green said he “never had a customer-facing job,” which he considered an asset for his new position.

“I have worked with clients and partners my entire career. I want to be their voice internally at Intel, and I think we’ve set up our team to be the best possible to lead them,” he said.