Symantec 2008 Annual Report Download - page 90

businesses. Currently two offerings are in the market — Symantec Online Backup and Symantec Online Storage for
Backup Exec.
Consulting and Education Services
Symantec Consulting provides product enablement and residency services to enable customers to maximize
the value of their investment in Symantec’s products and solutions. In addition, Symantec Consulting provides
customers advisory services in the areas of security and availability. Education Services provides a full range of
programs, including technical training and security awareness training, to help customers optimize their Symantec
solutions.
Sales and Channel Strategy
Consumer Products
We sell our consumer products and services to individuals and home offices globally through a multi-tiered
network of distribution partners. Our strategy is to place our products in a variety of channels where consumers
might consider purchasing security, PC tuneup and backup products.
Our products are available to customers through channels that include distributors, retailers, direct marketers,
Internet-based resellers, OEMs, system builders, educational institutions, and ISPs. We separately sell annual
content update subscriptions directly to end-users primarily through the Internet. We also sell some of our products
and product upgrades in conjunction with channel partners through direct mail/email and over the Internet.
Sales in the Consumer Products business through our electronic distribution channel, which includes sales
derived from OEMs, subscriptions, upgrades, online sales, and renewals, grew by $174 million in fiscal 2008 over
fiscal 2007. During fiscal 2008, approximately 73 percent of revenue in the Consumer Products segment came from
our electronic channels.
Enterprise Solutions
We sell and market our products and related services to enterprise customers both directly and through a
variety of indirect sales channels, which include value-added resellers, or VARs, large account resellers, or LARs,
distributors, system integrators, or SIs, and OEMs. Our enterprise customers include many leading global
corporations, small and medium-sized businesses, and many government agencies around the world. Some of
our sales efforts are targeted to senior executives and IT department personnel who are responsible for managing a
company’s IT initiatives.
Our primary method of demand generation for enterprise customers is through our direct sales force. We ended
fiscal 2008 with approximately 9,200 individuals in our sales and services team. Account managers are responsible
for customer relationships and opportunity management and are supported by product and services specialists.
We complement our direct sales efforts with indirect sales channels such as resellers, VARs, LARs,
distributors, and SIs, primarily to address the small to medium-sized enterprise market. We sell our products
through authorized distributors in more than 40 countries throughout the world. Our top distributor during fiscal
2008 was Ingram Micro, Inc.
Another important element of our Enterprise Solutions strategy involves our relationships with OEM partners
that incorporate our products into their products, bundle our products with their products, or serve as authorized
resellers of our products.
Marketing and Advertising
Our marketing expenditure relates primarily to advertising and promotion, which includes demand generation
and brand recognition of our consumer and enterprise products. Our advertising and promotion efforts include, but
are not limited to, electronic and print advertising, trade shows, collateral production, and all forms of direct
marketing. We also invest in cooperative marketing campaigns with distributors, resellers, retailers, OEMs, and
industry partners.
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