AMD has increased its focus on the consumer and commercial SMB segment, driving business success through its partner ecosystem. As the company doubles down on channel partnerships and pins down its priorities for the rest of the year, we sat down with Omar Fakhri, director, AMD EMEA Component Channel to discuss how changing customer and market demands have impacted AMD’s business priorities and plans for the future.
Last year, the level of uncertainty around the pandemic was uncharted territory, but it quickly became evident that demand was growing. With companies and individuals understand the impact of having better hardware on everyday experience, AMD’s business segment saw rapid growth.
“We have seen a clear shift towards premium products, particularly in the gaming market. People are investing in more premium products and have that expectation of performance and product longevity that comes with a premium offering. We are seeing a similar transition for workstations,” said Fakhri.
Fakhri added that another significant trend was the shift to notebooks and said: “The buying decision here is likely motivated by the view that the post-pandemic ‘new normal’ is going to involve much more flexible working, with a mix of working from home and on site, for the foreseeable future.”
He also stressed on the benefits of nurturing customer and partner relationships and said: “We have grown our partner list over the past few years, yet much of the more recent growth we’re now seeing has come from doing more with our existing partners. We are laser focused on protecting and developing these relationships. Which means we listen to our partners’ needs, then build our strategies and programmes around them.”
To extend additional support to partners, AMD recently streamlined its ‘PPP incentive programme’ making it easier to understand and offering transparency to its customers. This has enabled channel partners to plan ahead in uncertain times, with a clear idea of the profit margin they would be able to put back into their own business.
“The voice of the customer and AMD’s ability to listen and understand how the relationship needs to work between throughout the channel is imperative to our success. We strive to offer partners the programs, tools and support they need to execute sales strategies for our joint success,” he added.
One of the single biggest drawbacks of the current situation is that it has been impossible to visit our channel partners, in person, added Fakhri.
“We’ve been making a concerted effort to listen to the needs of our customers and ensure that we’re offering the support that they need remotely. We’ve kept lines of communication clear and fully embraced virtual engagements for training opportunities.
“We also introduced AMD Arena, a one stop shop where partners can get product training, marketing assets and everything else they need to support their business. We are looking forward to meeting face-to-face again, as soon as we can do so safely and responsibly.”
AMD is committed to strong roadmap execution and leap frogging design teams, focused on current and the next generation, to ensure a continuous flow of innovation and performance gains.
“One thing that quickly became obvious in 2020 was that one strategy would not work equally across all markets. We are selling products in over fifty countries, and the business differs across regions as well as between segments. During the second quarter of 2020, we saw a massive increase in demand for premium technology products in the established e-tail channels. However, in some of the emerging markets with less established online sales platforms we saw an initial slowdown, which was followed by a resurgence as they developed new platforms to support the increased level of demand,” he explained.
