About half of what I purchase at work requires going through a value-added reseller.
In theory a VAR is supposed to add value by selling entire turnkey solutions. Or they might specialize in providing knowledge and support for a particular industry. At the very least a VAR should have in depth knowledge of the products they are selling.
In practice, I find they can rarely answer my questions off the top of their head. I have yet to have one actually provide useful planning assistance for my long term needs. They tend to take three or four days to get me quotes. Where is the added value for me as a customer?
Why do companies wish to share the profit with another party? This should be really simple. Provide decent marketing material; provide fast turnaround for pricing requests; and when a customer is going to drop a few grand, let them talk to tech support to answer the tough questions the docs and sales people can't. Sure this means that they need to have a few more sales people on staff, but I have to believe that the increased profit per sale offsets those costs.
I find this all particularly frustrating, because I have walked into nearly every one of these purchases knowing exactly what I wanted and not needing anything more than a few minutes with technical support to verify some fiddly bits.
