Posted March 4, 2004

Kit Somal, a systems architect at Metro Business Systems, has been an HP Certified Professional for nearly five years. Somal is pictured here running a demo of an HP SAN solution.

Did you know that HP has a global sales force responsible for more than a billion dollars in annual sales that, for the most part, isn't even made up of HP employees?

That sales force is the HP Certified Professional program — a worldwide training and certification program that certifies resellers, services engineers and HP employees to a high level of sales and technical expertise on the company's products and solutions.

Ranked as one of the best certifications in the IT industry by numerous publications, the HP Certified Professional program gives HP a distinct competitive advantage, says Barbara Sandro, marketing manager for the HP Certified Professional Program in the Americas.

"It's really a program designed to enhance HP's sales and to ensure technical competency," Sandro explained. "By extending HP's skills and capabilities through trained professionals, HP creates advocates who provide high quality solutions to their customers and are more likely to recommend HP technologies."

An HP advocate

Take Kit (Umar) Somal, for example, a systems architect at Metro Business Systems — an HP reseller in Stamford, Connecticut. Because of his knowledge of HP equipment and products, he has been able to provide a number of HP solutions to customers that not only improve performance but also reduce costs.

Somal vividly recalls an incident that brought him respect and recognition from a multinational weather reinsurance and trading customer whose multi-server environment would lock up at times due to overloading. He recommended an HP SAN (storage area network) solution to the customer — which cost about one-sixth (less than 20 percent) of the competitor's SAN solution.

How did Somal know the precise SAN solution to recommend?

"Thanks to the training I received through the HP Certified Professional program, I was able to understand the customer's problem and identify the appropriate solution," he noted. "Besides saving the customer money, the virtual array that was created using an HP SAN resulted in a 412 percent across-the-board improvement in performance. In some cases there was a 600 percent improvement. Since then, the client swears by me."

Another time, that same client called Somal when it needed a business continuity disaster recover plan.

"I developed a proposal, configured the equipment and gave the client a demo with the seamless site failover and fail-back in the HP lab," he recalled. "They were very impressed. I had the confidence to deploy it because I believe in the HP technology since I have already seen it working in my HP Certified Professional program training."

An HP Certified Professional for nearly five years, Somal now has multiple HP certifications, including Master Accredited System Engineer SAN Architect and MASE SQL Server.

Getting to know HP

While the majority of participants in the HP Certified Program come from outside of the company, there are a number of HP employees worldwide who have earned certifications.

One of whom is Tsz-Hong Chan of the Enterprise Sales Group based in Hong Kong. Chan obtained his first HP certification in May 2003 and claims it is already paying significant dividends.

"The HP Certified Professional program has helped me be more confident when giving technical recommendations to customers," Chan said. "In addition, customers are more inclined to trust my judgment than ever before."

Chan says he now trains reseller and service partners, which in turn helps them sell HP products.

Somal sums it up another way: "People tend to recommend products that they are comfortable with and because they are good products," he said. "Without the certification, it is almost like having an F-16 fighter and not knowing how to fly it."

The HP Certified Professional program is available worldwide, with regional program offices in specific HP locations. Interested candidates, including resellers, services engineers and HP employees, can find more information about the program by clicking on their specific region on the map accessed through the HP Certification Program website.