HP Set To Unleash Breakthrough Mobile Portal, Social Media Tools

HP Inc. is ready to roll out a customized mobile-first platform tailored for channel partners selling the new A3 printer family.

The new platform, which works with both iPhone and Android smartphones, gives partners the ability to instantly search for product and solution information, compensation information, and sales and transaction data.

"This is a big breakthrough related to how partners are getting information today," said Vincent Brissot, head of channel marketing and operations at HP. "It is focused on personalization and machine learning with the ability to provide recommendations to partners."

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The new model offers a freeform experience that is related to how partners conduct day-to-day business, said Brissot. "You are getting a very rich interface and no longer getting cut down with regard to the information you can access," he said.

The mobile-first platform will be rolled out first to A3 partners and then expanded to the wider Partner First audience, said Brissot. HP is targeting the second half of 2017 for the rest of the partners, he said.

The mobile platform comes with partners increasingly relying on searches to gain valuable sales information for customer meetings, said Brissot.

HP also is launching a Social Media Center aimed at helping partners drive more content on social media platforms like Twitter and LinkedIn.

"We are empowering our channel partners to take good content and then expand their visibility through their own Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram platforms," he said.

Partners that have used the Social Media Center under a pilot program have increased their social media impressions from just 400 to 7,000, said Brissot. "Partners that are using this Social Media Center are getting new followers every day," he said.

Now that it has split from Hewlett Packard Enterprise, HP is able to drive new marketing tools at least twice as fast on its own, said Brissot. The mobile-first platform, for example, brought to market in six months, would have taken a year to 18 months when HP Inc. was part of Hewlett-Packard, said Brissot. "We're making decisions three to four times faster compared to the old HP," he said.