Batty accepts that attempts to impose too much of a template on partners are doomed to failure. My experience is that if you try to put resellers in a box, some will find it hard to grow. When we are sharing out the sales leads, someone might miss out who could do the job because we have classified them too narrowly. Batty adds that a vertical tag against a reseller's name has other down-sides too. Big corporates are no longer competing only vertically any more.
Shops are into banking, banks are into insurance.
Even resellers themselves are part of this trend by getting more and more into providing finance. The internet is enabling a lot of the breakdown between barriers. Clearly, in such a climate it is only a strong-minded reseller that looks at only one type of customer. Say the word 'vertical' to a lot of people in an IT context, and they will assume you are talking about vertical portals or e-marketplaces. However, bear in mind that while quite a few of the bigger ecommerce exchanges are struggling to get enough bums on seats, most of the smaller so-called private exchanges are thriving.