Kast and Weissman agree that intermediaries have to be involved. "These courses will not work unless intermediaries help make the decisions," says Weissman.  Kast agrees: "HP was there to facilitate the training, not to provide it."  Kronenburg also argues that at least some of the competency training should be done externally.

"Competence skills are best taught in face-to-face seminars, whilst knowledge can be learnt remotely over the web."

This will demonstrate to partners that the course will not just consist of a series of sermons from the supplier.  Kast agrees with this:  "It was important that it was INSEAD, not HP, which delivered the courses." 

However, he points out that using professional trainers or business schools is expensive.
 
One way to reduce costs, says Kronenburg, is to deliver competence and knowledge-based training in different ways: "Competence skills are best taught in face-to-face seminars, whilst knowledge can be learnt remotely over the web. We insist that, before people attend the skills seminar, that they first pass a test to demonstrate they have done the knowledge module." 

This means that everyone who attends the expensive skills seminar has first shown a personal commitment by putting in the hours to learn the knowledge.  It also means that everyone coming to the skills seminar starts with the same knowledge base.

Weissman says one of the keys is to ensure that the channel meets part of the cost of whatever is on offer: "The HP Academy was never cheap. And that was important in ensuring that the people who went were really committed."

That is all well and good, argues Kast at HP, but getting intermediaries to pay is never easy: "We found that partners were prepared to pay for directors to go to INSEAD, but rather less willing to pay for junior salespeople to be properly trained."

Any supplier embarking on a competence training strategy has to treat it like a separate business.  You have to be sure that the training is something people really want, you have to ensure that the price is right and you have to ensure that the quality is high.  One reason why so few companies go down this course is that it is a real management challenge.

So why bother? Let's leave the last word to Kronenburg, ever the evangelist: "Any supplier who limits itself to just creating and shipping a product, is doomed to low cost and low margin manufacture. It is extremely important that a supplier should be involved in the selling process and so should enable resellers to add value to its product."  Put like that, it is hard to argue with the man, isn't it?

* Commitment and its consequences in the American Agency System of Selling Insurance, The Journal of Risk and Insurance, 1998, Vol. 65, No. 54, PP637-669.