Starting with a clean sheet

By ADAM GIFFORD

If Sue Leikis has any way to sum up her new job as Compaq's channels development director for the Asia-Pacific region, it's a "clean sheet of paper."

It's a new position, providing a coordination point for Compaq operations in 17 countries from a base in Singapore.

Channel is computer industry jargon for the intermediaries between the manufacturer and the consumer.

Because their products are so complex, channel partners have always been important to PCmanufacturers, even after Dell Computer pioneered the direct sale of its products over the internet.

Since the channels usually carry stock from several manufacturers, keeping them happy is a job in itself.

Ms Leikis says electronic commerce is throwing up huge challenges for vendors.

"We see the model changing and we need to have a regional view so we can make sure the plans and projects we put in place are delivered to countries, and implementation plans make sense this market.

"Houston [Compaq headquarters] has realised regions are quite different and need someone regionally to pick up initiatives.

"I'll be looking at our channel strategy and working on channel programmes with a focus on channel satisfaction, training and development," Ms Leikis says.

New products Compaq is introducing, such as its projector, require new distribution partners. The development of online marketplaces are also a challenge to the traditional model.

"I'll be sitting down with those portals and talking through how does it make sense to do business. It's blank sheet of paper time."

She says the chance to step up from her country role, as director of the commercial personal computing group, to a regional role, "is a great opportunity for my career and an opportunity to really leverage the understanding and experience I have got with New Zealand business partners.

"I have worked with some of those partners for years, so I will be the eyes and ears of New Zealand at a regional level and make sure Compaq designs programmes which work in this area."

She says New Zealand is a microcosm of the region, so she can consult and test strategies by using those existing relationships.

New products and services must be brought to market quickly. "The days of being able to announce a product in this part of the world five months after it comes out in North America are gone."

Ms Leikis brings almost 20 years' experience in the computer industry to the job. She spent 14 years honing her skills at IBM before shifting to Digital New Zealand, where she built up its PC division into the second biggest seller of PCs into the local market before the merger with Compaq.

She joins a line of Digital and Compaq staff from New Zealand now in prominent positions in the company overseas. In Singapore she will find Meech Aspden, now Compaq's commercial personal computing group marketing manager for Asia Pacific, and Stephen Bacon, its AlphaServers marketing manager.

Her predecessor as managing director of Digital, Robyn West, went via Singapore to Houston, where she is responsible for North America.