Trading places?
IT trade association CompTIA is traditionally associated with skills training and accreditiation, but it's been threatening to move into a more traditional trade association role for a while now.
It looks like it's making a move to recruit more resellers into its membership today, with the launch of a new ‘marketing toolkit' that's free to its members.
This is what the press release says about it: "The marketing toolkit provides companies with a guide to carry out their own communications and marketing. Valuable hints and tips that would normally be the preserve of a dedicated department or professional consultancy are included."
Matthew Poyiadgi, European VP at CompTIA, added: "In these tough economic times survival is dependent on slim margins. We have a wealth of expertise and experience that is at our members' disposal; our aim is to help them cut costs and stay ahead of the competition. Resellers are a crucial part of our member base so we're looking to support them any way that we can."
CompTIA apparently agrees with Harvard Business School's John Quelch, who observed last March: "It is well documented that brands that increase advertising during a recession, when competitors are cutting back, can improve market share and return on investment at lower cost than during good economic times."
This could mark a resumption of the battle to represent the UK channel. The incumbent trade body is the PCA, but many members of the channel we've spoken to feel it doesn't do enough to represent their interests.
When CompTIA started to make noises about representing the channel more pro-actively early last year, there was considerable optimism. However, there weren't too many signs of activity from CompTIA in this direction in the second half of last year, so maybe this is a resumption of that aim.
