Reseller Middle East April 2014 by Reseller Middle East

ISSUE 208 // april 2014 WWW.RESELLERME.COM

Global ambitions Global Distribution aims to be a strong contender in the regional market

PUBLICATION LICENSED BY IMPZ

Opportunities in sdn

how to prevent misuse of credit

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CONTENTS

ISSUE 208 // April 2014

cover feature

Highlights 6

News We help you catch up on all the major news and announcements in the regional channel community.

Opinion 20 Engaging in real time

Pierre Fricke from Red Hat on how retailers need to enhance their IT capabilities to engage with customers.

interview 26 Listening to the channel

CommVault’s Martin Gibbons on the company’s channel initiatives and business focus.

Feature 28 New avenues for growth

Reseller ME explores how partners can gain a competitve advantage by embracing SDN.

The double-edged sword

While extending credit is necessary for the business, Reseller ME finds out how to prevent its misuse.

Global ambitions

Reseller ME finds out how Global Distribution plans to grow to the next billion in the next three to four years.

Xerox Emirates introduces Wide Format IJP 2000

vendor focus 48 Identifying business

prospects

Mohammed Owais from WD gives an insight into the company’s expansion plans in to Africa.

52 Facilitating partners to

profit

54 Driven to excel

Ciena’s Omar Alsaied on the trends in networking solutions and the company’s channel strategies.

Vineeth Sebastian of MMD and AOC discusses channel strategy for 2014.

Huawei announces TalkBand B1 april 2014

Eye-Fi unveils Mobi -wireless memory card Reseller Middle East

editorial Chairman Dominic De Sousa CEO Nadeem Hood COO

Georgina O’Hara Publishing Director Rajashree Rammohan raj.ram@cpimediagroup.com +971 4 375 1511

To be, or not to be

Editorial Group Editor Jeevan Thankappan jeevan.thankappan@cpimediagroup.com +971 4 375 1513 Assistant Editor Janees Reghelini Contributing Editor Anna Bricker Online Editor James Dartnell Advertising Sales Managers Merle Carrasco merle.carrasco@cpimediagroup.com +971 4 375 1510 Nasir Bazaz nasir.bazaz@cpimediagroup.com +971 4 375 1512 Circulation Database and Circulation Manager Rajeesh M rajeesh.nair@cpimediagroup.com +971 4 375 1645 Production and Design Production Manager James P Tharian james.tharian@cpimediagroup.com +971 4 375 1643 Designer Analou Balbero analou.balbero@cpimediagroup.com +971 4 375 1504 Digital www.resellerme.com DIGITAL SERVICES Digital Services Manager Tristan Troy P Maagma Web Developers Erik Briones Jefferson de Joya Photographer and Social Media Co-ordinator Jay Colina webmaster@cpimediagroup.com +971 4 440 9100

Jeevan Thankappan Group Editor Talk to us: E-mail: jeevan.thankappan@ cpimediagroup.com Facebook: www.facebook.com/ ResellerME Twitter: @ResellerME

At the recent symposium held in Dubai, Gartner has predicted that the total IT spending in the Middle East will be to the tune of $211 billion this year, an 8 percent increase from last year. This is very significant given the fact that the research firm has pegged the global growth at around 3.2 percent. According to Gartner, the spurt in growth is going to come from large scale IT investments made by verticals such as communications, media, banking, government, oil & gas and manufacturing. Not very surprisingly, areas such as mobility, smart government, Big Data and Internet of Things will further accelerate the transformation and modernisation process of the region, says the firm. The region’s spending on devices such as mobile phones, tablets, PCs and printers is also forecast to touch $37 billion this year, and mobile phone spending alone is projected to surpass $39 billion in 2018. While this may not come as a surprise to many, what really caught my eye at the Symposium was one particular statistic – around 40 percent of enterprises have already invested in some form of public cloud. This ranges from SaaS, IaaS to PaaS, and in some rare cases even BPaaS (Business Process as a Service). This is a great opportunity for the regional channel. Although the nature of applications being ported to the cloud are not very mission critical in nature, it still represents a lucrative opportunity for distributors, systems integrators and solution providers. For resellers, the time is now to make changes to their business models to take advantage of opportunities in this space, though the transition is easier said than done. And the biggest challenge facing the resellers now is to make the difficult choice of whether to work with a pure cloud service provider or resell cloud services offered by the current technology vendors. Cloud, in more ways than one, is a disruptive technology and its impact is already being felt by IT distributors worldwide. As IT trade body CompTIA says, “unlike traditional IT products with clearly defined architectures and feature sets, cloud by design is virtual and decentralised in nature.” What this means for distributors is that the traditional model of pick, pack and ship may not work anymore. And for resellers, the writing on the wall is clear – build and provide more value-added services around cloud solutions coupled with consulting or run the risk of going out of business.

Published by

Registered at IMPZ PO Box 13700 Dubai, UAE Tel: +971 4 375 1500 Fax: +971 4 447 2409 Printed by Printwell Printing Press © Copyright 2014 CPI All rights reserved While the publishers have made every effort to ensure the accuracy of all information in this magazine, they will not be held responsible for any errors therein.

april 2014

Reseller Middle East

highlights

News

Citrix appoints Logicom as VAD in the Middle East

Nicholas Argyrides, Logicom; Johnny Karam, Vice President, MEA, Citrix and Noman Qadir, Citrix Citrix has appointment Logicom as its second value-added distributor (VAD) in the Middle East region. As demand for virtualisation, networking and cloud infrastructure in the Middle East continues

to grow rapidly, Logicom will distribute all Citrix solutions, including network optimisation technologies, to resellers across the region to ensure organisations have the correct infrastructure in place to

support the surge in demand for virtual and mobile workspaces. “We have experienced tremendous growth in the past twelve months, particularly in the areas of network optimisation, desktop virtualisation and enterprise mobility. Logicom’s appointment as a second distributor is an important step to help resellers capitalise on this demand. Further, its expertise in network infrastructure and optimisation will prove to be of benefit to the reseller community across the Middle East,” said Noman Qadir, Director, Channels, MEA, Citrix. “We have been consistently focusing on creating programmes and support mechanisms that accelerate the business of our partners, supporting the Middle East reseller base with senior level, experienced management teams located across region. Logicom is uniquely qualified to deliver and integrate complex technologies,” said Nicholas Argyrides, Director of Sales & Marketing, Distribution, Logicom. “This appointment is testament to Logicom’s solid skills and experience in the region and we welcome the addition of the Citrix solution-set to our brand portfolio.” As a Value Added Distributor, Logicom will distribute the full range of Citrix products and solutions across the GCC, KSA, Egypt and the Levant, including Citrix XenDesktop, XenApp, XenMobile, NetScaler and CloudBridge.

Omnix International to distribute AGA CAD’s T4R in ME An authorised distributor for Autodesk products in the Middle East, Omnix International has entered into a strategic partnership agreement with AGA CAD, a developer of Autodesk Revit add-ons and professional BIM solutions. Under the terms of the agreement, Omnix International will be AGA CAD’s official distributor for the Middle East region. AGA CAD has developed an extension tool that supports Revit Autodesk software. T4R (Tools 4 Revit) is the trademark of Autodesk Revit add-ons developed by AGA CAD for architects, constructors, engineers and building contractors. With the new partnership in place, Omnix International will be able to distribute T4R across Autodesk Revit users in key Middle East countries such as UAE, Oman,

Reseller Middle East

april 2014

Qatar, KSA, Kuwait, Bahrain, Lebanon, Egypt, and Jordan. The extensions T4R (Tools 4 Revit), will allow users to automate design processes, increase design efficiency, enhance design quality and reduce design costs. “We are extremely confident with this new partnership with AGA CAD, which are considered pioneers in the development of Autodesk Revit add-ons and professional BIM software in the AEC/FM fields. The company is known for development of solutions that match the demand of Autodesk Revit enabled BIM users from,” said Sajan Sadiq, Marketing Manager, Omnix International. “Across today’s business environments, competition rides high among professional designers and design firms and the use of key products

that integrate the latest in technology helps improve their skills and efficiencies. T4R is an exemplary new software solution for architects, constructors, engineers and building contractors who want to stay one step ahead of the competition.” “Omnix International remains a perfect and most strategic choice to become our official distributor for the Middle East region. We are confident that they will be able to promote and market our T4R extensions successfully, giving users in the region the advantage of gaining more benefits from using Autodesk Revit software. This new partnership gives us the upbeat feeling of seeing huge value to develop Revit extensions for ME region,” concluded Gitana Cerniauskiene, International Sales Manager, AGA CAD.

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highlights

News

SETRA to be Eaton’s KSA systems integrator

Eaton has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to appoint Saudi Arabia’s Saudi Electronic Trading Company (SETRA) as its local systems integrator in the data centre market. In partnership with SETRA, Eaton will provide localised Uninterruptable Power supply (UPS) solutions to the Saudi Arabian market. According to the company, data centres are the backbone of most businesses and as such require mission-critical power management solutions, including backup

power protection and distribution equipment, to ensure a steady flow of high-quality power. A reliable power supply is also vital to mitigate the risk of downtime and loss of valuable data. In partnership with SETRA, Eaton will be in a position to deliver solutions to these key needs to data centre customers across the Kingdom. “Reliable power is an unquestionable need in today’s society, whether for business or personal requirements,” said George Saikali, Deputy General Manager, SETRA. “Our partnership with Eaton brings together local

and international expertise that can deliver the very best in power management for the fast-growing and strategically important data center market within the Kingdom.” “Saudi Arabia remains an important and dominant market for Eaton in the region,” commented Frank Ackland, General Manager, Eaton Middle East. “SETRA’s expertise and heritage in the local market provides a perfect alignment with our solutions in the data center segment and we look forward to strengthening this relationship further for the future.”

StarLink extends distribution coverage with Dell Software

Avinash Advani, Director, Business Strategy, StarLink StarLink has entered in a new agreement with Dell Software expanding distribution of Dell SonicWall across

Reseller Middle East

april 2014

the Middle East region. The company’s channel partners in the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Oman, Kuwait, Bahrain, Turkey, Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon can now provide their customers with Dell Software’s leading connected security solution. This includes SonicWALL’s Next-Generation Firewall and VPN appliances with application intelligence, control and visualization and value-added security subscriptions such as anti-virus, intrusion prevention and anti-spyware for wired and wireless networks of all sizes. “This extended distribution

coverage with Dell Software is very exciting for us, as it enables StarLink to work closely with our channel partners across the region to grow our Dell Software business with SonicWall security products. As a part of our Year of the Channel initiative, we will be welcoming our strategic partners into StarLink’s Choice Programme, as well as Dell’s PartnerDirect programme, in order to reward the most committed partners with the tools and resources to drive profitability and growth,” said Avinash Advani, Director, Business Strategy, StarLink.

“We are very pleased to have extended our existing partnership with StarLink. We look forward to building on their existing success across the Middle East region,” said Dominique Honnay, Director EMEA Emerging Markets, Dell Software. “With StarLink’s unique true value-added distribution business model and their reputation as a trusted security advisor, we expect to significantly increase Dell SonicWall market share while simultaneously growing both our run-rate and enterprise business,” he added.

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highlights

News

Kaspersky lab names EMT as ATC

Mohammad Mobasseri, CEO, EMT Distribution

EMT Distribution has been appointed as the Authorised Training Centre (ATC) by Kaspersky Lab for the GCC region. Mohammad Mobasseri, CEO, EMT Distribution, said, “Professionals can now get trained on Kaspersky Lab Authorised Training Courses and take the exams for their professional certifications. We are pleased to offer Kaspersky Lab training courses at our facility. The partnership with Kaspersky Lab will strengthen our position as a leader in providing IT learning solutions in the GCC region.” As part of the agreement, EMT Distribution will offer Kasperky Lab Authorised Training courses such as KL Certified

Cyberoam appoints three NetGenie distributors

Network security appliance provider Cyberoam has announced the appointment of Bulwark, Emitac Qatar and Sevengate as its distributors for its product NetGenie VDSL2/ADSL2+ Wi-Fi appliances. Bulwark will be overseeing distribution for the region of UAE, Oman Bahrain and Kuwait while Sevengate and Emitac will cover Levant and Qatar respectively. Cyberoam NetGenie VDSL2/ADSL2+ Wi-Fi appliances offered as a wireless router for home users and integrated security appliance for small offices, secure users and devices in home and small office networks with wireless for Internet

Reseller Middle East

april 2014

browsing, along with threat-free Wi-Fi. Bulwark, Emitac Qatar and Sevengate are also the existing distributors for Cyberoam network security appliances in the region. They will push NetGenie Wi-Fi appliances through their strong network of resellers. Deepak Motwani, Product Manager, Bulwark said, “We are delighted to add Cyberoam’s NetGenie Home and SOHO Wi-Fi appliances to our extensive range of security offerings. This is a time when parents are beleaguered with concerns on the security and time management of their children and family on the Internet. Similarly,

Professional, KL Certified Systems Engineer, KL Certified Administrator, KL Certified Sales Engineer, and KL Certified Consultant. “We felt a strong need to fulfill the vacuum that exists in the GCC region’s ICT industry of Kaspersky Lab certified professionals. Hence, we took it upon ourselves to engage with Kaspersky Lab, resulting in EMT Distribution being appointed as an authorised training partner,” added Mobasseri. “EMT Distribution has recognised ICT as a thrust industry, which helps in building knowledge economies. Unless there is effective adoption of technology, such economies fail to sustain,” explained Mobasseri.

small offices with limited resources struggle to grow their businesses amidst growing cyber attacks and wasteful Internet usages by employees. NetGenie VDSL2/ADSL2+ appliances uniquely and comprehensively address need for security and productivity/ Internet usages both for home and small offices. With advanced Internet controls NetGenie offers need-based access levels to employees/children to various sites and applications like social sites, entertainment portals, instant messengers, and bit torrent, across an entire range of devices.” Speaking about Cyberoam NetGenie, Ravinder Janotra, Regional Sales Manager, Cyberoam, Middle East, said “NetGenie was conceptualised based on Cyberoam’s global consumer survey that presented a strong need for such a product among home and small office Internet users. It is first of its kind appliance that integrates online security, Wi-Fi security, advanced Internet access controls, 3G-ready support, and more, in a single appliance, that will save buying and maintenance costs of separate solutions for end users”. Commenting on the new partnerships he added “Our partners’ extensive experience and the zeal to capture the market through addressing its needs is the right push needed to emerge as leaders in matching Cyberoam’s steps as leaders in the network security appliance market.”

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highlights

News

Gartner: MEA infrastructure spend to hit $3.4 billion

IT infrastructure spending, comprising storage, server, and enterprise networking equipment, in the Middle East and Africa is forecast to reach $3.47 billion, a 4.1 percent

increase from 2013, according to Gartner. Gartner said IT infrastructure spend in the region will be driven by data centre modernisation efforts, coupled with new

data centre build out, by local, as well as international companies. Server is the biggest component of this infrastructure market, accounting for US $1.3 billion in 2014, and is expected to reach US $1.54 billion in 2017. “CIOs in the Gulf are beginning to prepare their enterprises to stay relevant in the digital business era, and they will continue to invest in technologies such as mobility, cloud, social media and analytics,” said Mary Mesaglio, Research Vice President, Gartner. “In 2014, we expect a lot of digital business and innovation to be driven by the convergence of these forces in the Gulf.” “Private cloud, security and mobility are key drivers for the infrastructure spend in the Gulf region”, said Naveen Mishra, Research Director, Gartner. “The mid-market in the Gulf is expected to fuel infrastructure spending, primarily by focusing on virtualization and the public cloud.”

Bit9 appoints new META Regional Director

Mohammad Aquib Aftab, Regional Director, META, Bit9 Bit9 has appointed Mohammad Aquib Aftab as the Regional Director for the Middle East, Turkey and Africa (META). Aftab will be responsible for establishing the Bit9 brand in the region as the right choice for enterprise endpoint and server security, according to the company. He will also

Reseller Middle East

april 2014

be developing the company’s channel by building long-term, sustainable business relationships with the region’s top partners. Aftab comes with more than 12 years of experience in IT sales, including the last five years in value-added distribution, where he was responsible for establishing and promoting new security products in the Middle East, as well as, developing strong relationships with channel partners. He has also previously won deals in a large number of enterprise customer accounts in the telecommunications and government sectors, which will enable rapid build-out for Bit9’s client portfolio, the company states. “I am very excited to be working with the Bit9 team and am eagerly looking forward to connecting with business partners and enterprise customers in the region,” said Aquib Aftab, Regional Director, Bit9. “Companies in the Middle East and Turkey are experiencing ongoing relentless cyber threats. Ever evolving security threats within

the two regions necessitate a new way of approaching security. Enterprises know that they can no longer rely on old-world security technologies such as antivirus in today’s new, disruptive security landscape. With a next-generation approach to endpoint and server security, and robust partnerships with network security leaders, including Fire Eye and Palo Alto Networks, Bit9 is uniquely positioned to help companies enhance their security posture,” he added. “Having worked in security distribution and being skilled in managing tier-one partners, Aftab brings with him the right mix of skills and experience we need to build our business in the Middle East and Turkey. The region faces a complex and interlinking set of security challenges and as such there is a real market opportunity for some fresh thinking when it comes to tackling the very real and present security threats that companies have to deal with on a daily basis,” said Tony Shadrake, Regional Director, EMEA, Bit9.

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highlights

News

Riverbed promotes Taj ElKhayat as METNA MD Riverbed has promoted Taj ElKhayat to Managing Director for Middle East, Turkey, North, West, and Central Africa (METNA). He will be responsible for expanding and raising the Riverbed business and presence in his expanded region and driving the company’s go-to-market strategy across the four solutions within the Riverbed Application Performance Platform: Steelhead, Granite, Stingray and Performance Management. Willem Hendrickx, Senior Vice President, Sales, EMEA, Riverbed, said, “ElKhayat’s deep understanding of these key markets and the solid ecosystem he is building with our channel partners and key alliances will be instrumental

in elevating the Riverbed brand and stimulating increased demand for our solutions to drive revenue growth across our entire product portfolio.” ElKhayat said, “I look forward to capitalising on the achievements we accomplished over the past year and generate stronger awareness of Riverbed. The new regions hold a great potential as emerging markets with vast investment opportunities. Africa registers the highest economic growth worldwide and the Turkish government’s efforts to drive digitisation are spurring IT growth across the country, whereas the Middle East holds one of the fastest growth rates globally in terms of IT spending.”

Taj ElKhayat , Managing Director , METNA, Riverbed

Redington Value announced as Oracle’s Middle East distributor

Ramkumar Balakrishnan, Senior Vice-President, Redington Gulf, Value Division

Reseller Middle East

april 2014

Redington Value, the value-added distribution arm of Redington Gulf, has announced that it will distribute Oracle solutions in the Middle East region, which includes Egypt. The value-added distributor will provide sales support, market intelligence, pre-sales support and commercial skills services for the entire Oracle Stack to its value-added reseller partners, and will also provide Oracle Authorised Solution Centres for partners and customers across the region. Redington will focus on the development of the Oracle channel in the Middle East Region, driving deeper adoption of Oracle’s technology and application products within the Middle East IT channel. “Oracle represents the first opportunity for Redington Value to position the entire stack including Applications, Middleware and Storage as a true converged infrastructure platform in the form of Oracle engineered systems to its customer segment,” said Ramkumar Balakrishnan, Senior Vice-President, Redington Gulf, Value Division. “We see great value in this relationship and the potential that it has for both our companies to harness the capability of the channel in the Middle East. We are extremely excited to work with Oracle in this journey,” he added. “The partner community can look forward to a lot of innovative methods to engage with Oracle through Redington Value,” he further said. Redington will offer its partners pricing and deal support for Oracle solutions, as well as support in terms of enablement and demand generation. It will also be responsible for identifying a strategic network of specialist partners for driving deeper adoption of Oracle products within the ISV community in the region.

www.resellerme.com

Coming together today, to create better opportunities for tomorrow Redington Value is now an authorized distributor for Oracle in the Middle East. Oracle is the leading provider of the most complete, open, and integrated business software and hardware systems. Redington, with its diverse reach and excellent strength across the region, will now offer the entire stack of Oracle products and value added support services including pre sales, credit, local billing and concept centers spread across its locations in the Middle East.

To place an order, please write to sales.oracle@redingtongulf.com or call 971 50 2286236

highlights

News

malomatia becomes HP’s first Qatar MSP malomatia, an IT service provider in Qatar market, has signed a partnership agreement with HP to become its first Managed Service Provider (MSP) partner in the country. According to the company, it will leverage HP’s management software to offer Integrated Managed Service solutions to enterprises in Qatar through a state-of-the-art operations centre currently being built. malomatia CEO, Yousef Al-Naama, said, “We are extremely excited about this partnership. Being the first HP Managed Service Provider (MSP) partner in Qatar uniquely positions and enables us to offer

our customers cutting-edge solutions at a much more competitive cost not just in Qatar but across the region. As an authorised HP MSP, we can now provide our customers the option to take advantage of our services without hosting it on-premise by using HP IT Management solution.” Al Naama further added, “Our partnership with HP marks an important step in our managed services business and our ability to industrialise our services. Managed Services represents a key part of our business today and plays to the heart to the company’s objective of building and sustaining capabilities in the local market”.

Yousef Al-Naama, CEO, malomatia

InfoWatch signs distribution agreement with Scope ME

Natalya Kaspersky, CEO, InfoWatch Group Scope Middle East has been signed on by InfoWatch as a distributor for the

Reseller Middle East

Middle East region. Scope will focus its efforts on the enterprise and SMB segments

april 2014

and will target industry verticals like banking and finance, government, telecom and oil and gas. Natalya Kaspersky, CEO, InfoWatch Group said, “The Gulf has witnessed several high-profile data leak incidents in the recent past. InfoWatch’s knowledge and work with customers in the region shows the rising interest of company owners and CIOs in DLP solutions as the data leakage situation is getting more critical. As such, we felt the time was right to fuel more efforts into the market by establishing co-operation with strong regional partners. We already had an ongoing relationship with Scope, supporting them in developing business opportunities

by offering an additional layer to their security products. We are now pleased to enter into a full-fledged agreement, since we regard the company as one of the leading IT solution distributors in the Middle East & North Africa region. We are confident that Scope will play a big role in our success in the region.” InfoWatch will extend technical and sales training and certification support to Scope and its channel. The security vendor will help partners develop leads and close deals by providing on-site sales and technical teams. InfoWatch and Scope will also engage in joint marketing activities and the newlysigned distributor will actively participate in regional InfoWatch

roadshows. “Security has today become one of the top priorities for companies in the region,” Fadi AbuEkab, CEO, Scope ME, said. “A multi-layered and holistic approach to data protection is required and within this framework DLP has a very important role to play since these solutions are meant for internal security protection while antiviruses, firewalls and anti-malware are oriented more towards external threats. We believe that InfoWatch adds a very strong enterprise level DLP solution suite to our existing product portfolio and will enrich our ability to provide end-to-end security solutions that address the local market needs.”

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highlights

News

Aruba appoints new regional sales director for Gulf and Pakistan Aruba Networks has appointed Bashar Bashaireh as Regional Sales Director, Gulf & Pakistan. In this new role, Bashaireh is responsible for developing and executing strategies to expand Aruba’s customer base and capitalise on opportunities arising from mobility and BYOD market trends. With over 22 years of professional experience in the Middle East ICT market, Bashaireh has held senior management positions in various renowned companies and has successfully built start-ups. His previous stint was with the security firm, Fortinet where he served as regional director for Middle East and Pakistan. Prior to that, he held the secretary general position at Jordan’s Ministry of Information and Communications Technology

(MoICT) for a period of two years with the responsibility of developing the Jordanian ICT sector in collaboration with public and private stakeholders. Wolfram Fischer, Vice President EMEA, Aruba Networks said, “We have identified the Gulf and Pakistan as high growth markets for the company and were looking for a sales leader capable of driving the growth of our company in this region. Bashaireh is a well-known and highly respected figure in the Middle East IT market. With an outstanding track record in sales, a strong technical background, an acute insight into the nuances of the regional market and a result-oriented management approach, he is the perfect candidate to lead our expansion efforts.”

Bashar Bashaireh, Regional Sales Director, Gulf & Pakistan

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opinion

Red Hat

Engaging in real time Pierre Fricke, Director of Product Marketing, Integration and BPM, Red Hat, discusses how retailers need to develop their IT capabilities in order to engage with customers from a holistic viewpoint.

Pierre Fricke, Director of Product Marketing, Integration and BPM, Red Hat

Fierce competition in today’s marketplace is pressuring retailers in Middle East to scrutinise their business operations for areas where they can improve the customer experience. Not only are retailers fighting for customers, but they also face the challenge of retaining those customers. Doing this, requires a deep understanding of customers and potential customers – who they are, what they need and want, where they are, when and where they need your goods. The retailer who knows and understands customers at this level can be more effective in gaining a leadership position in the market. Those that don’t deliver may see customers head to competitors. Successful engagement with customers requires an understanding of both historical and real time data related to their wants and needs, so

Reseller Middle East

april 2014

that retailers can make intelligent, informed recommendations and offerings for those customers. If the customer opts for a high level of personalisation, then to deliver this personalised service, the retailer must be able to accommodate an integrated set of inputs, data, applications, services and business processes to enable them to orchestrate the superior experience. To better understand their customers, retailers need to have access to legacy data and understand its significance alongside incoming data in real time (e.g., Big Data in motion). Without this holistic and real-time view of the customer, the risk of missing opportunities, or offering a product that is mismatched to the wants and needs of the customer, increases. Unfortunately, many IT infrastructures do not support the notion of a holistic view of a customer. Many different applications and business processes only have a partial view of each customer—likely the view provided by a closely connected database and input flow. The big picture is not accessible. Delighting and engaging with customers in a meaningful way requires organisations to understand and provide what the customer wants, when she wants it, and how she wants it. IT is the catalyst that can turn this vision into reality. The IT organisation develops applications to serve customers in new and better ways. Most IT organisations struggle with a backlog of application projects. The right application platform can provide the flexibility, performance, and cloud-readiness needed to develop and deploy applications faster, translating into lower go-to-market times and costs. Once deployed, these

applications can leverage an in-memory data grid to permit customers to enjoy a fast and uninterrupted experience, even during peak business times. The application platform is only one part of the innovative retailer’s IT arsenal. The applications need data about the customer and situation. Manual integration and management of the data connections and format translations can have a significant impact on how quickly solutions can be developed, deployed, and adapted. Data virtualisation and integration can address this need, providing simultaneous access to many data types and sources across the organisation and making them available to applications in an easily consumable manner. This can be particularly effective for taking intelligent action in support of customerfacing business processes. Retailers can then begin to integrate the applications and build new and reusable services that provide IT and analysts with building blocks to create composite applications, BPM processes, mobile applications, and cloud services that serve the customer. A comprehensive business process management (BPM) suite can coordinate customer interactions through various devices and locations and automate the back-end processes that support the customer experience. Retailers can delight and engage with their customers in meaningful ways when they have the right combination of tools and technologies in place. These technologies can help businesses find their voices in the midst of fierce competition for the attention and loyalty of customers, ensuring realtime, personalised experiences that customers crave. //

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*Comparisons based on February 2012 Principled Technologies extrapolation of 10U worth of Rack servers (5 servers x 4 VMs per server = 20 VMs per 10U or 2.0VMs/U) vs. 10U worth of Blade servers (16 servers x 6 VMs per server = 96 VMs per 10U or 9.6VMs/U). ©2012 Dell Inc. All rights reserved. Intel, the Intel logo, Xeon, and Xeon Inside are trademarks or registered trademarks of Intel Corporation in the U.S. and/or other countries.

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Global Distribution

Global ambitions Reseller ME finds out how Global Distribution plans to grow to the next billion in the next three to four years.

It is not often that you find a Dubai-based company that has made a mark on the global business canvas and yet Global Distribution is one such success story. Recently, the company achieved a consolidated revenue of $1 billion, since its inception 13 years ago. And far from resting on its laurels, the company aims to reach the next billion within the next three to four years. “While, at the same time, ensuring that we

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maintain one of the highest returns on investment, considering our industry standards,” says V.M. Chandrasekar, Group Managing Director, Global Distribution. He is confident of touching this seemingly ambitious milestone through various steps that amounts to a clear roadmap. The first step has been to change its market positioning. Back in 2001, when Chandrasekar founded the company, it was positioned as an IT distribution firm and then later on as

a mobility distribution one. However, today, it is being positioned as a technology solutions company. “It is not about just one aspect or the other, today everything is integrated,” Chandrasekar says. Over the last 13 years, the company was focused on creating the infrastructure to support these escalated growth plans. “We have a compelling story in terms of the markets,” says the Group MD. Indeed, with businesses in India, Latin and

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Central America, Europe and the Middle East, and its recent foray in to the African markets do give it a better chance to get closer to the next billion. “We are even opening offices in places such as Sudan, which has huge opportunities in terms of topline and bottomline,” he says. Chandrasekar adds that the African market offers immense opportunities in all focus verticals of the company, which is why it’s a good match. “We do thorough market research and look at

(L-R) Mario M. Veljovic, Parvez Ahmed, V.M. Chandrasekar and Laurent Journoud

markets objectively before we decide to expand there,” he explains. Realising that the company needs to be structured in order to hit this goal, Chandrasekar streamlined functions into four specific segments. “There has to be a clear middle management layer, which is why we have recently appointed high profile industry executives. We hope to grow separately in these four verticals— territorial expansion, solutions business, managing and acquiring franchises and growing the private label business— which will lead us to the primary objective. While I will drive the private label business, we have appointed experienced individuals to spearhead the other three verticals,” he explains. And by experienced, Chandrasekar means the top brass of the IT world. Parvez Ahmed, an industry veteran who spearheaded Almasa IT distribution, joined Global as Group Executive Director. His mandate is to overlook territorial expansion and consolidation of existing business and put them into the right framework. Mario M. Veljovic, former Operations and Services Director at Ingram Micro Aptec, has also joined Global as the Vice President Solutions MENA. “We want to really create the solutions vertical within this company in terms of value. Veljovic has the mandate to do that, taking on from the expertise of his previous stints,” Chandrasekar says. Laurent Journoud, former VP Sales and Marketing at Asbis, will now be responsible for bringing in new franchises and managing the existing ones at Global. “His mandate also includes how to map the skillset of Global in various regions with what the vendors need. Different markets have different requirements. Global might have specific skillset in specific regions. So the mapping exercise itself at a group level is a mammoth task. He will also acquire new franchises whenever there is an opportunity, both on the IT and mobility side,” says Chandrasekar.

PRIVATE LABEL BUSINESS The private label business, Global’s Group MD says, could contribute significantly to the $2 billion goal. Although aware that it is a very crowded market, Global plans to launch its own brand of tablets, smartphones and lifestyle products under the brand name ‘Ionic’. Chandrasekar justifies it by saying that the products will have some “striking features” when it is launched in the region. He further adds, “The private label push is something we are going to do at a group level. This will also help us with our topline and bottomline because we see a lot of growth and profit opportunities in this area.” “We are also incorporating exciting mobility application tools at a deeper level into our private label when we launch it. Once we see that it works well then we can customise it and offer it to the market at a later stage,” he explains. The partners will have to wait and watch out for how successful these products will be in the market and what exactly the striking features would be. Chandrasekar says the market can expect a lot more from this side of business in the coming months. EXPANSION Global has laid out clear expansion strategies. Already present in various markets, it now plans to focus on newer regions such as Africa. As it makes better business sense to have an onground presence to ensure smooth operations, the company is physically present in all their markets including Africa and India. Chandrasekar further adds that their job is to identify gaps and establish what value they can bring on to the table to fill those gaps. When it comes to the Middle East region, the company plans to cater to all the GCC countries from its headquarters in Dubai itself. Ahmed says there are no plans as of now to expand to countries such as Saudi Arabia, within the region. “It’s not that easy for a Dubai company to set up an in-country

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operation in KSA. This can deplete a lot of bandwidth and resources. Based on our experiences, we know it is better to handle Saudi from Dubai rather than go in to Saudi. Whether it is private label or IT, we will go through the partner approach,” he says. He further reinforces Chandrasekar’s point saying that there needs to be a value-add when entering a country and if that is not going to happen, then simply expanding for status does not work well in the long haul. SOLUTIONS Nowadays, everyone wants a piece of the solutions business. And that just about sums the problem as well. Veljovic says Global has a persuasive point in this regard by being the only distributor out of UAE, which has the capabilities to venture out. Moreover, what adds to Global’s strengths is the fact that it is one of the few distributors to have both distribution and systems integration under its umbrella. This is the only combination, says Veljovic, which will bring solutions to where it is actually needed— resellers on the street, the plazas and the centres. “These are the people who need it. But most distributors are not reaching out to them. They are trying to sell solutions to systems integration companies who might already have the expertise and don’t really need it. A vast number of companies are starting up here and they need small-type SMB solutions to grow. These kind of solutions need to be built and you need the channel to help you with that.” Global’s own systems integration company —Tech Forte Systems — gives it the expertise and experience needed in this field. “With systems integration, we go out in a partner model with many of the local SIs and other partners in the region. We, then, build expertise in two industrial verticals — the telcos and education. We drive our distributor’s distribution portfolio to make sure that it complements our approach on the systems integration side,” explains Veljovic.

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Global Distribution

He adds that the Global office is equipped to have all technologies that they promote in store and acts as a proof of concept for its partners and customers. Adding on, he says, “I remotely connect from anywhere whether I’m travelling or not, which is exactly the point. This you can only leverage when you have systems integration in-house. When you do it yourself, you need to mirror what the systems integrator needs to do and then ensure you define your borders very clearly so that you don’t conflict with your partners that you have in many countries.” In the solutions business, the debate about being a value-added or volume distributor is on-going. But how

FRANCHISES Consciously deciding to grow outside first as the Middle East market was crowded then, the company plans to be more visible in its country of origin, going forward. “A lot of consolidation has happened in this market in the last few years. And today at a billion dollar level, we need to have a visibility from our headquarters. Journoud has the expertise to do this,” explains Chandrasekar. Journoud, Global’s VP Sales and Marketing, adds, “The market is changing very fast and we want to be a step ahead. You will see more communication in the next few months

“We hope to grow separately in these four verticals—territorial expansion, solutions business, managing and acquiring franchises and growing the private label business.” does the company plan to straddle both these different approaches? To understand this, one has to first and foremost define value. Veljovic explains, “If I claim to be somebody who has provided presales services to Alpha Data then I am ridiculing myself because they already have those capabilities. But if I tell you that Lucky Star computers is selling server because I explained how to sell and configure a server to them, then I have delivered true value. This is what we want to do — offer true value.” Chandrasekar adds, “When we decided to offer value, we realised our first customer is a systems integrator. Therefore, we must go through the pains of a systems integrator to understand what our customer wants. This understanding is what is lacking with today’s volume or value distributors in the industry.”

where we will announce partnerships and other related activities.” Confident that once the company is more visible in the region, it will help to reach its goal faster, Chandrasekar also says having a robust micro-distribution model in place in India will become an added advantage here as the region lacks this kind of a model today. All in all, territorial expansion, new IT and mobility vendor franchises, value and solutions business and private label are the ingredients with which Global plans to drive the company to the next billion. Although the goal – grow by a billion in the next three to four years – sounds ambitious, the company seems to have most of the ground work and extensively thoughtout strategies in place, so there’s nothing really stopping them to make the impossible possible. //

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interview

Martin Gibbons

Listening to the channel Martin Gibbons, Director of Distribution EMEA, CommVault, explains channel initiatives and business focus for the company in the current year.

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How do you stack up against competition? Firstly, we issue a channel strategy, which is 100 percent channel. CommVault is growing fast and we are an agile company. We make quick decisions, and most importantly—we listen to our channel. We have disruptive best-in-breed technologies, many of our partners recognise this. It allows you to unlock hardware-based buying decisions. The intelligence lies in the software layer in terms of data management. CommVault is completely hardware agnostic. All these and the agility factor, allow us to compete against the big players. How do you manage unstructured data? Do you have a play in Big Data and cloud? It depends on the definition of Big Data. We cater to small companies and even personal and individual users at home. Our technology is ideally placed to help both businesses and users within the business, using more mobile devices to keep control of the data. We help in storing up on an appropriate technology to be able to search for and index the data, to be able to turn it into information that is relevant for the business rather than just simply store it. Cloud is also a massive growth area for us. We have been building out cloud services group, which has been in operation now for about a year. And we will continue to invest in that area. How has the uptake been for data and information management products in the region? We have seen very good growth here. We have grown the team extensively

over the last two years. We have grown our business and our partner base here. We have good relationships with our OEM and alliance partners. You only have to come to places such as Dubai to notice the energy about the place, significant business happening here and the place is experiencing the same kind of data explosion that is happening across the globe. However, security is still an issue when it comes to data but CommVault is well placed to deal with that. Security for data is obviously very important for our customers and we have encryption technologies. What would you say is a sweet spot for CommVault in terms of size and verticals? The sweet spot is completely across the board. A large part of our business is fueled by growth from our enterprise business because at the high end, there is a lot of complexity and progress. We are ideally positioned and have won many businesses in that space. Also, we are seeing growth in SMEs and SMBs type of business. Data explosion is taking place there as well. As they too, go through the same kind of complexity and legacy solutions, they are not quite scaling up to meet the demands, which is where CommVault’s sweet spot is really. Almost 100 percent of our businesses is a swop-out of old legacy technologies. How are you enabling your channel partners? There is a variety of different ways with which we are doing that. Last year in February, we launched, a new set of Simpana 10 online training, which is

“We are a listening company— we listen to the channel, understand the way in which they wish to go. We listen to their feedback and we respond to it.”

a new accreditation for the channel. We are putting more resources into channel enablement and have people within CommVault who are focused on that specific area. A year ago, we launched partner enablement centre and will continue to develop that piece of channel as well. Things like solutions enablement toolkits are available from our online portal, allowing partners to build campaigns. It is important for the channel community to come up with new refreshed ideas, and we are constantly on the lookout to see how else we can help partners. We are a listening company— we listen to the channel, understand the way in which they wish to go. We listen to their feedback and we respond to it. What is your focus for this year? This year, one of my big focuses is on distribution channel. We are always looking at the channel to see if we have got the right kind of partnerships on board. In some instances, we are looking to streamline this and in other instances, we may look for new partnerships to bring on board. Logicom is a classic example of that. We needed a strong partner with a good presence. We are not afraid to sign new partnerships, and at the same time, we are not afraid to review our existing ones to ensure they are working for both, us and the partners. Could you elaborate on your partner programmes? We have a multi-tiered partner programme at the moment. However, this month, we are going to overhaul that. We have rolled out a new worldwide programme. While there might not be anything revolutionary in there, it will, however, enable partners to understand where they sit within the CommVault community. We will be looking to deepen the rewards for a closer partnership with our top end focus partners. The more you invest in CommVault, the more we want to invest back in the channel. This is what the world wide partner programme is going to set out to be. //

april 2014

Reseller Middle East

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SDN

new avenues for growth Reseller ME explores how partners can gain a competitive advantage by embracing software-defined networking (SDN) solutions.

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www.resellerme.com

Unlike trends such as cloud and BYOD, software-defined networking (SDN) may seem like an alien concept that doesn’t relate to everyday business. It is something everyone talks about and is considered to be a buzz word but assuming it is complicated, partners and organisations shy away from it. Well, the first thing, to understand is that SDN is a business enabler. It is designed to address the issues that is seen with traditional networks. “SDN comprises multiple technologies that open the planes of the network, enabling them to participate in broader orchestration frameworks to solve cloud-related challenges,” says Yarob Sakhnini, Regional Director, MEMA, Brocade Communications. “OpenFlow protocol, one of the popular SDN-enabling technologies, is gaining increased support from the world’s most demanding network operators. OpenFlow enables programmatic control of network infrastructures and rapid

network service development and deployment. This allows SDN to centrally manage and monitor the network across not just routers and switches from a single vendor but across any networking hardware that implements this standardised SDN protocol,” he adds. But having said this, Sakhnini cautions that SDN is not a replacement of the physical infrastructure. It still requires a level of physical infrastructure and therefore, he says, it will not affect sales of networking hardware. “With all forms of virtualisation, SDN is sensitive to time-lag, latency and downtime. Therefore, if the customer’s physical infrastructure is still a three-tier, legacy affair, with redundancy and resilience issues, any investment in SDN may reap little real reward.” Agreeing with Sakhnini, Wael el Kabbany, Vice President, Middle East, North Africa and Eastern Mediterranean, Avaya says it’s true that the changes happening don’t affect the sales but have an impact on the way networks are bought and sold.

He further says that the concept behind SDN is not new, players have been deploying it for some time now, “What’s new is how a flexible, simplified network deployed through SDN can help deploy and manage complex, advanced systems spread across places like the cloud.” According to Noman Qadir, Director, Channels, MEA, Citrix, SDN is just another name for virtualisation. Most customers are accustomed with server virtualisation, storage and network virtualisation, the latter two, he says, effectively allows organisations to manage underlying hardware resources as though they were abstracted pools of computing resources. “Recently, industry jargon for doing this changed from virtualisation to SDN– meaning computing resources will be defined, controlled and managed using software, improving utilisation and the ability to automate management,” he explains. It might be a challenge to determine when SDN would be mainstream in the region. Although according to a survey done by

april 2014

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SDN

Brocade in Europe and North America, one in five enterprises are using SDN solutions. However, it is interesting to note that there were discrepancies in what respondents “had in mind” when they said they are using SDN technology. This indicates that the definition of SDN is not clear, even globally. But when it comes to verticals, Maan Al Sabi, Business Development Manager, FVC, says, telecom operators and service providers will stand to benefit most out of this technology. “Given the scale of their network deployments, they will have the opportunity to realise considerable savings on CAPEX because of the reduced cost of hardware resulting from displacing network control to the cloud; and in OPEX due to reduced use of manpower since they will no longer need to manage a distributed complex network fabric.” Adding on, Sabi says, other industries running private WANs and clouds will also benefit, such as oil and gas, security and defence, education, especially universities with large campuses, and the transportation sector, mainly airports. Sakhnini believes banks and financial institutions will be early

“What’s new is how a flexible, simplified network deployed through SDN can help deploy and manage complex, advanced systems spread across places like the cloud.” Wael el Kabbany, Vice President, Middle East, North Africa and Eastern Mediterranean, Avaya

adopters of SDN solutions as they have been at the forefront of enterprise network designs, since their real-time trading applications require low latency. “Other enterprises that are highly dependent on the speed and scale of their network can also benefit from SDNs, including retail organisations with highly distributed locations and large manufacturing organisations,” he adds. Now the question is what does SDN mean for the channel partners? When most new technologies are introduced in the market, it is a difficult initiative for the partners. Primarily, this is because the experience and technical requirement that goes around it, is

“A lot of the pressure is on the vendor to help the partner understand what is and what is not important from a market perspective.” Glen Ogden, Regional Sales Director, Middle East, A10 Networks

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tremendous. “A lot of the pressure is on the vendor to help the partner understand what is and what is not important from a market perspective. And help them understand the skills they need to achieve in order to be able to talk about SDN comfortably with their customers and then be able to deliver it,” says Glen Ogden, Regional Sales Director, Middle East, A10 Networks. “Retaining skills in the channel is very difficult. It goes back to partners having programmes to be able to retain their individuals,” he adds. The role of the channel in the initial stages will be that of an advisor. And once, SDN is thoroughly understood by all stakeholders, channel partners may have to step in to tailor each deployment according to the customer’s demands and expectations. Sakhnini says, “When SDN really takes off, which for the region is still a few years away, we will expect our channel partners to drive sales and turn customer mentalities. For this, they need to start increasing their knowledge in SDN and the softwarecentric data centre. They will need to focus on targeting specific verticals and look to position SDN as the technology of choice for enterprises

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SDN

that are looking to build cloud assets.” The message that Brocade want to drive home to its partners, he says, is that SDN is a good thing. “It is easier to sell because it is a single platform, one physical box, and then they get to layer the virtualised function that their particular customer needs at the time, on top of that. This ‘open stack’ is customisable and catering to individual customer needs will enable partners to deliver greater value and therefore gain better revenues.” Also, with the move to a software-defined model, partners can not only make better margins than on hardware, but it also costs them less in terms of inventory. This means a better financial model. What’s more, Sakhnini says further, partners who have already developed the technical skill sets for the company’s products will not require a radical shift in their business. “SDN solutions feature the same functionality, except that they are running on virtual machines, which is why adapting to this new model from a technology standpoint will not be very difficult.” All in all, in one word, it means “Opportunity,” says Den Sullivan, Head of Enterprise and Architectures, Cisco Middle East, Africa, Russia. And this is across the enterprise network, wide area network and even the data centres. “I believe the opportunity exists when consulting with customers, during implementation and in all the activities that follow in the traditional partner-customer model. There is also a new opportunity here as well. We at Cisco, created significant Application Programmable Interfaces (APIs), and the opportunity for the partner then obviously goes beyond

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“When SDN really takes off, which for the region is still a few years away, we will expect our channel partners to drive sales and turn customer mentalities.” Yarob Sakhnini, Regional Director, MEMA, Brocade Communications.

the traditional boundaries,” he further explains. The partner can then add their own value and create another layer of abstraction and create software and automation activities around the API model. To be successful with SDN, Kabbany from Avaya says, partners need to build the right ecosystem of vendors—ones who can offer the full value proposition of the technology, and who can differentiate themselves in the market. “Developing new technology holistically—incorporating services— is always important, as is having properly-trained experts in the channel,” he adds. Most industry players are expecting SDN to transform the business model for technology providers as software-based technology will gain importance. “The spectrum of SDN and Network Functions Virtualisation (NFV) technology will continue to grow, moving forward, presenting resellers with ample business opportunities. With the technology landscape currently being reconfigured, resellers can seize the ‘first mover’ advantage and establish a fresh foothold in the market,” says Sabi from FVC. More importantly, customers with existing investments in legacy

networking technology will want to implement SDN by gradually folding it into their existing legacy networks and slowly phasing out the old technology in favour of the new. “This will mean that a lot of integration and migration work will be required, which presents a significant opportunity for professional services teams at the cusp of this network transformation,’ he explains. “Ultimately, and as with all new concepts the uptake of SDN will be contingent on being able to provide the right people with the right skills. They would be the ambassadors to help raise awareness by demonstrating the untapped potential benefit of SDN, and also help educate resellers and customers to adequately deploy the technology,” says Qadir from Citrix. What partners must note is that in order to be able to deploy SDN solutions in a few years’ time, customers will have to get their infrastructure ready today. This means, the technology is definitely here to stay and presents immense opportunities for partners to increase their revenues and margins. Therefore, it might be worthwhile to embrace and study it, in order to have a competitive advantage. //

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Credit

The double-edged sword Dubai had witnessed a spate of runaways in the channel space over the last few years. After a relatively quiet period, the recent NSK runaway incident has brought to light the urgent need for constant evaluation of credit periods extended to partners. While extending credit is necessary for the business, Reseller ME explores in-depth, on how to prevent such cases. Trading on credit basis is a risk most distributors have to undertake. It offers a competitive advantage compared to the conventional, time-consuming Letter of Credit and, at times, is necessary for the development of the business. However, Dubai has witnessed a number of runaways in the channel space, in the last five years, one of them as recent as earlier this year. How to avoid such a scenario is easier said than done because, â&#x20AC;&#x153;the nature of business makes IT a very risky industry,â&#x20AC;? says Gregory Le Henand, Country Manager, Coface Emirates.

Reseller Middle East

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www.resellerme.com

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Credit

And abandoning the credit system altogether is not an option. In fact, Schuyler D’Souza, Country Manager, Credit Insurance, Orient Insurance PJSC and, GCC Head of Atradius, believes credit facilities can also have a positive impact on trade, if put to proper use. “They can impact all stakeholders – resellers, distributors, vendors, credit insurers, banks and the financial ecosystem – in a very positive manner, as all stakeholders benefit from the trade,” he says. However, D’Souza adds, at times, the priorities can shift, and credit facilities are used for a host of negative purposes. Elaborating, he says, “Negative purposes can range from dumping product or achieving sales targets to selling goods with traditionally longer payment cycles that encourage further delays or selling to challenging markets in search of higher yields without carrying out the necessary due diligence. We strongly believe that both, the reseller and the distributor bear equal responsibility for such actions that are damaging to the financial ecosystem and the trade at large.” While both the distributor and the reseller are certainly accountable, Sundar Raj, Deputy MD, Almasa and Sainath Menon, Finance Manager,

“We strongly believe that both, the reseller and the distributor bear equal responsibility for such actions that are damaging to the financial ecosystem and the trade at large.” Schuyler D’Souza, Country Manager, Credit Insurance, Orient Insurance PJSC and, GCC Head of Atradius

Asbis says, the vendors too, could play a role in controlling such a circumstance. “The vendor can intervene in the market as and when required by controlling product supply and supporting the distributor and reseller with price corrections,” Raj says. Menon adds that vendors can support to work with distributors in tandem, keeping in mind, the market dynamics and setting realistic targets depending on the market scenario. “And having better supply control and price regulation will make a difference,” he says. But at the end of the day, the distributor has to take precautions because after all, providing credit is like lending money to someone. Menon adds, “The tendency of

“We can be swayed by situations and sales pressures but at the end, it would turn out to be disastrous if we do not collect our money.” Sainath Menon, Finance Manager, Asbis

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april 2014

misusing the credit extended is more probable than not, while in wrong hands. We can be swayed by situations and sales pressures but at the end, it would turn out to be disastrous if we do not collect our money. We need to understand that no organisation can survive long without making profits and distributors in their zest to sell more to accomplish targets, provide excessive credit and thereby lay a platform for customers to do anything to meet their requirement for a critical cash flow position.” Resellers then might resort to selling their stocks below the market price for immediate cash and eventually they will owe more than what they will receive, leading to the crisis. To avoid this situation, D’Souza from Orient Insurance says, it is important that distributors allow resellers practical credit limits. The market moves so quickly that resellers can be left with stock they cannot sell perhaps due to price or to changes in product. As a consequence, resellers can struggle to pay the distributor, which then, affects his cash flow. “We have in the past experienced runaways, and these are cases that cause maximum

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Credit

“Sharing information about unhealthy trade practices in the market, sharing payment default information with insurance companies on time and insurance companies should also work to give a clear idea to the vendor or distributor on the credit worthiness of the reseller. This can help prevent such incidents.” Sundar Raj, Deputy MD, Almasa

damage to the financial ecosystem, as not only the distributors, but also credit insurers and banks have suffered as a consequence. This is where you have to watch how much credit is granted to the resellers and, manage the risk while enabling the trade,” D’Souza explains. This brings to the forefront, one of the most challenging issues of the IT sector in the region, how to create a financial transparency? Sharing information and having regular communication is the undisputed answer. According to Menon from Asbis, an element of mutual trust is necessary to be in a position to share critical information. “There needs to be a quality communication and interaction, sharing mutual concerns faced in the market among peers. The topic of discussion should include on which way the market is heading, the challenges we may face, credibility and customer payment behaviour,” he adds. Raj from Almasa further emphasises that runaways can be avoided if simple points are considered by vendors and distributers. “For example, sharing

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information about unhealthy trade practices in the market, sharing payment default information with insurance companies on time and insurance companies should also work to give a clear idea to the vendor or distributor on the credit worthiness of the reseller. This can help prevent such incidents.” Although, taking credit insurance is one way to safeguard against a runaway situation, how easy is it to work with insurance firms? “It is all a matter of due diligence—if the financials are strong, then the faster the approval for credit insurance accompanied by a credit insurance limit,” says Dantees KP, Finance Director, Tecbuy. Also, sharing market information, both good and bad, will build a strong foundation for a good working relationship with insurance companies, says Menon. “They draw the comfort that you are equally bearing the concern of the credit decision taken by them. If we are capable in building a good rapport with them, there is every possibility they will value your knowledge and consider you as a very good reference in their decision making,” he adds.

Sharing payment default and market information goes a long way in assessing the credit worthiness, agrees, Massimo Falcioni, CEO, Gulf Cooperation Council, Euler Hermes. “The more transparent you are, the more credit worthiness you get,” he says. Euler Hermes, a trade credit insurance firm, gauges a distributor’s credit worthiness based on a methodology that analyses hundreds of economic indicators, both quantitative and qualitative, to provide the best understanding of the economic, political, business environment, commercial and financing risks. To assess the risk of a company, Euler Hermes needs to retrieve information from that company such as financials and strategic plans. The more detailed this information, the better the insurance firm can perform the rating of the company and its buyers, says Falcioni. Le Henand from Coface says that the insurance firm follows four steps in order to assess the credit worthiness. First, the firm confirms the year of establishment. The longer the business has been running, the more number of people know the

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company in the market and the more difficult it is to leave without a trace. Then, the firm analyses the type of products being traded. He says, “We would advise to deal with companies that have a diversified and structured offer.” At this stage, the company also checks who the signatory is and who the shareholders are. “Also we see how recent is the trade license? Often what happens is, a signatory is assigned, but in reality, the real culprits are people behind the signatory. So then without the knowledge of those people, there is a chance that they might come back with the intention of doing fraud under a different signatory,” he says. Then, on-site visit is conducted to analyse the stock and number of employees, after which, the firm goes through the financial statements of the company. But the situation is not so grim today, as most resellers release their financials to distributors or directly to credit insurers. “There is far more financial information available today than in 2008, but there is a clear need for resellers to engage the services of Class A or B auditors, and participate in open discussions with distributors and credit insurers where details of both financial and non-financial information are discussed in a transparent manner. This will result in a higher level of

“It is all a matter of due diligence— if the financials are strong, then the faster the approval for credit insurance accompanied by a credit insurance limit.” Dantees KP, Finance Director, Tecbuy.

financial and operational transparency,” D’Souza explains. Apart from that, bodies such as Dubai Computer Group (DCG) are putting in efforts to avoid resellers exiting the market leaving behind huge debts. Some instances could be genuine too, like in the case of Fabis Traders. Four years ago, DCG played a huge role in enabling the trader to return when it had exited the market due to unmanageable debts. This was done by liquefying its assets. Today, it is back and doing good business, says Shailendra Rughwani, MD, Expert Computers and President, DCG. Over the last few years, the situation has been controlled to a large extent, he adds. “There used to be a time where almost every month, we had a runaway situation and we didn’t know

“Unless, they are established in the market for over two years, credit should not be extended. And here is where DCG can play a role.” Shailendra Rughwani, MD, Expert Computers and President, DCG

Reseller Middle East

april 2014

whom to trust. This has been reduced to one or two cases in long periods of time,” he says. “To further avoid this, we have been encouraging our members to identify and deal with the right people, don’t try to over sell and to be within the limits,” he adds. Also, he points out that the day everybody decides to unite and follow strict policies, then perhaps we will witness even fewer cases with time. Policies such as ensuring that if there is a new person in the market, then one should only deal on cash basis with them. “Unless, they are established in the market for over two years, credit should not be extended. And here is where DCG can play a role,” he says. However, he admits, the new player could find somebody or the other who will extend credit to them as the market is widespread. Although, he is hopeful that as DCG increases its membership, better and more awareness is created. In the end, it’s a responsibility all stakeholders carry. Sharing regular information about market trends and partners should be a common practice, perhaps, one, that the industry should look at formally. And, one can never be too cautious, while offering credit, as it is the cornerstone of business continuity. //

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Event

ConnICT

Huawei Partner Summit : CONNICT Channel partners came together at Huaweiâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s annual partner summit held last month, to learn the latest on the companyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s channel initiatives.

Reseller Middle East

april 2014

Building upon the strength of its Middle East channel partner network, Huawei discussed specialised training and technical knowledge in order to enable its partners to zero in on opportunities for growth at its Channel Partner Summit, which was organised by Reseller ME, last month, at Jumeirah Beach Hotel, Dubai. The event also witnessed the ICT solutions provider launching its latest offering in high-end enterprise storage â&#x20AC;&#x201C; OceanStor 18000 series. The company said that it is aiming at

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making storage secure, trusted, flexible and efficient. Providing the latest updates from the company, Dong Wu, President, Huawei, Enterprise Business, Middle East spoke about embracing change and winning the future in his keynote address. After a brief on the history of the company, Wu said, “The biggest challenge in enterprise is to have a partner ecosystem.” Talking about current scenarios, Wu urged partners to take advantage of the trends prevailing in the market. He said, “Four forces will drive new business opportunities – mobile, social network, cloud and Big Data.”

Based on these trends, the company has re-aligned its channel strategy, this includes helping its partners to focus on medium-sized businesses in hospitality, healthcare, education, retail and manufacturing sectors. Peng Zhi Feng, Channel Director, Huawei, Enterprise Business, Middle East elaborated on the company’s enablement programme for its partners. From training to marketing, Feng said the company supports and focuses on partner initiatives. “Our objective is to make sure our partner programme is easy to join, easy to win and easy to profit,” he said. He further added, “Our goal

is to continue working closely with our trusted partners to help shape the enterprise landscape and drive technology innovation around key business trends.” Eric Dai, Service Director, Huawei, Enterprise Business, Middle East then delivered on the company’s channel service strategies. A panel discussion on mobility and Big Data also took place where the panelists discussed the reception of the region towards mobility solutions and the future outlook among other aspects. The conference concluded with Huawei customers sharing success stories and experience

working with the company. These included companies such as Saudi Aramco, Dubai Golf and Technical and Vocational Training Corporation (TVTC). In recognition of the efforts that its channel partners have put in over the course of 2013, the event also hosted the first Huawei Channel Awards ceremony, with a view to recognise partners who have made exceptional contribution to develop its channel business in the enterprise market. Four categories were awarded including Best Contribution, Best Breakthrough, Best Joint Growth and Best Salesperson of the year. //

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Partner Connect

Event

Optimising networking solutions Solution providers and channel partners gathered together at Reseller MEâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Partner Connect event to share insights and updates on the latest technologies in networking solutions. Networks become the sole lifeline for organisations as they grow into bigger entities. This also means a great opportunity for the channel partners. With businesses looking at revamping their network infrastructure to incorporate higher bandwidth in order to grow more efficiently, partners can leverage by learning and understanding the networking technologies such as SDN and virtualisation. Partners who grasp these technologies quicker, will be the ones to reap the advantages first.

april 2014

Reseller Middle East

Partner Connect

Shelly Varghese, Product Manager, Mindware

Basil Ayass, Marketing Director, Dell Middle East Identifying the opportunities present, vendors and solution providers have been on the top of their game, manufacturing solutions and products to manage network traffic, address security lapses and related areas. However, facing the end-customer are the channel partners, and the challenges that they face could be on a different level. From low margins to fierce competition, a reseller is faced with a number of issues. They need to be as well versed with the solutions they offer as the vendors themselves, to be able to answer to today’s empowered

Event

Yehia Elamsy, Sales Director, HP

Rahul Sikka, Segment Leader, Middle East, Eaton Corporation customers. And for this a high level of training is required. It is therefore, necessary for vendors to take time out to ensure this kind of support is given to the partners. The Reseller ME Partner Connect brought to light key trends and strategies that the partners can undertake to ensure profitability. Attended by industry stalwarts, the evening kicked off with Rahul Sikka’s, Segment Leader, Middle East, Eaton Corporation, presentation on the company’s Power Solution for Virtualised Environments. He said, “Companies are wasting money

on power output. Efficiency is something the region must adopt. Eaton provides a robust converged infrastructure with best-in-class technologies.” Shelly Varghese, Product Manager, Mindware, then spoke on maximising ROI while delivering mobility and data networks. “Connectivity, experience, manageability and transparency are all paramount in this day and age,” Varghese emphasised. Yehia Elamsy, Sales Director, HP, presented statistics on the SDN market and how partners should optimise the trend. “The

SDN/openflow market will grow to almost $2 billion by 2016,” Elamsy said. The evening concluded with a presentation from Basil Ayass, Marketing Director, Dell Middle East. He elaborated on how converged solutions could be a way to differentiate in the market while simultaneously profiting from it. He said, “The first mistake partners make is to talk about what they can offer, not what the customer wants. It is important that partners avoid doing business purely based on discounts, this can be misleading and damaging.” //

april 2014

Reseller Middle East

vendor focus

Mohammed Owais, Sales Director, Middle East & Africa, WD

Identifying business prospects Mohammed Owais, Sales Director, Middle East & Africa, WD, gives an insight into the companyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s expansion plans in to Africa. 48

Reseller Middle East

april 2014

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Could you give us an overview of the company’s highlights in the last 6 months? In the last two quarters, WD has reinforced its leadership in the storage market with the launch of several class leading products. Most recently, we launched our Purple surveillance class hard drives, which are designed for use in home and small business security environments with up to eight hard drives and 32 HD cameras. Prior to that, we launched the world’s first and only 2.5-inch dual drive, the Black², which offer 120GB of SSD storage and 1TB of HDD storage in a package that can be fitted into most of the Windows-based laptops on the market today. We also introduced our second generation Red drives, which are optimised for 1-to-5 bay SOHO NAS enclosures. What is the business focus for 2014? The appetite for storage is increasing at an exponential rate and customers, whether they are end consumers, SMBs or enterprises, demand products that address their specific needs. In particular, we see a lot of potential in the mainstream surveillance, mobile and SOHO NAS storage segments within the region. With the launch of Purple, Black² and the second generation Red drives, the company is perfectly positioned to address the demands of these fast growing segments. WD sees healthy potential in the Middle East and Africa markets and is actively investing in these regions with the goal of generating sustainable business for many years to come.

Could you discuss your expansion into Africa? What are the strengths of this market? How are partners playing a role here? Our first goal with our expansion into Africa was to ensure ample availability of stocks on-ground via a focused distributor. It’s for this reason that we appointed Mitsumi Distribution to be our focus distributor for Africa. We are now working to align with like-mind channel partners across the continent as there is a healthy appetite for storage products and, with the right partners, we plan to interact with end consumers, SMBs and corporates, so that we can establish mindshare in terms of the significance of storage and the ability of the company’s various products and solutions to cater to their needs. We see a lot of potential in the Africa market – people are eager to use technology as they understand that it can make a difference to their day-today existence. What has been the channel strategy for WD? We have always strived to maintain our position as a storage solution provider whose wide range of products meet and exceed the demands of the market. Educating partners on a consistent basis is also a key part of our overall channel strategy —we want each partner to achieve their business objectives by having a clear understanding of the WD products that they sell. This is so that they are able to pass on the product’s value-add to customers and close sales without resorting to negotiating on the price.

“Being inclined to shift boxes is far from ideal as it rarely ever leads to repeat business, which is the key to long term sustainability.”

What kind of innovation can the partners expect from WD this year? WD continually invests in offering state-of-the-art products and our recently launched Purple and Black² are proof of this. Purple ships with exclusive AllFrame technology, which is specifically tuned for surveillance security systems and reduces frame loss when used in surveillance applications. Black² too is a unique proposition that no other storage vendor offers – with this dual drive a laptop user no longer has to compromise between choosing between either high performance storage or high capacity storage. With Black², he gets both in a single drive and, best of all, he can choose where he wishes to store data – on the flash storage or on the mechanical storage. What challenges do you face with the channel in this region? How do you plan to address them? The regional channel is gradually maturing but there are still those who focus on shifting boxes versus explaining the benefits and the value proposition of the product to the end customer. Being inclined to shift boxes is far from ideal as it rarely ever leads to repeat business, which is the key to long term sustainability. To this end, we constantly focus on educating partners via tools such as webinars and online training portals such as WD University, though we also frequently conduct training seminars and run roadshows. What is your message to the channel community? WD is fully committed to its partners across the region and believes that business relationships are a two-way street. We look to our partners to take our feedback and share their own with us. We would also like to point out that the storage market will continue to present ample business opportunities and with our range of products, partners can take advantage of these opportunities. //

april 2014

Reseller Middle East

Partner Watch

Quality Group

Making a mark The 25-year old company, Quality Group is all set to move to its new 85,000 square feet headquarters in DIP, says Vasant Menghani, Founder and CEO, Quality Group.

Vasant Menghani, Founder & CEO, Quality Group

Established in 1988, Quality Group has been one of Dubai’s homegrown IT companies. Started out from Khalid Bin Waleed Street, 25 years ago, today the company is in the process of moving operations to an 85,000 square feet, two storey headquarters in Dubai Investment Park (DIP). Vasant Menghani, Founder & CEO, Quality Group says, “We had

founded the company with just five products. Today, we are all about product innovation and have more than 1,100 products and 35 product categories under Touchmate, our IT and electronics brand, right from private labels, desktops, laptops, accessories, software developments to tablets and most recently smartphones too.” The new headquarters will also have a showroom to display its complete product range and also has a factory set-up. Subsequent to this move, the company also plans to go on a hiring mode to have enough personnel to handle the mobile and solutions business. “We are looking at adding 40 to 50 more employees by the end of this year. I’m looking for scientists who can keep pace with my speed and be aggressive to go after opportunities in the new business lines.” Menghani’s primary focus is to move entire operations to the new location, “The whole world should recognise our group and brands. Then, our next move is to enter smartphones category more seriously.” Touchmate, Quality Group’s flagship brand, has a wide reach through partnerships with large retailers in the region such as Carrefour, Lulu, Sharaf DG, Axiom, Jacky’s Electronics, E-city and Hyper Panda. “We were the first supplier for Carrefour when it entered the market around 15 years ago and were exclusive

“We had founded the company with just five products. Today, we are all about product innovation and have more than 1,100 products and 35 product categories under Touchmate.” 50

Reseller Middle East

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suppliers for the first five years,” he says. Instrumental in the region’s IT development, the company has been partnering with global names such as Intel and Microsoft to bring about innovative offerings, since the last two decades. “We have introduced a 7.85-inch tablet in association with Intel, which is new to the market. And will also launch world’s biggest tablet with Intel, which is 19-inches and works on dual mode — Android and Windows— we believe in working towards our customers’ satisfaction.” What differentiates them from competition is the fact that they are not just traders, says Menghani. “We understand technology and this knowledge is our differentiator. 75 percent of customers are untouched, because they cannot afford expensive brands, therefore, there definitely is a huge gap in the market. Also, today customers don’t want to touch the lowend Chinese brands. They want a known brand such as Touchmate.” In terms of location, the company plans to focus on areas such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, India and Iran. It is also planning to open an office in Africa. “We already have distributors in these areas, we are now looking at an in-country presence. We have presence in Qatar, Kuwait, Oman and Bahrain through our retail partners. We have distributors nearly in 65 countries,” Menghani adds. Currently, the company sells about 60 to 70 thousand pieces every month worldwide and is working towards increasing this to 150 thousand pieces every month in the global market by the year end. Menghani says this growth is expected from the new locations. On a parting note, Menghani says, “We don’t work only for money. I work for the IT industry and for my user.” //

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vendor focus

Ciena

Facilitating partners to profit Omar Alsaied, Middle East Carriers Sales Director, Ciena, on the trends in networking solutions and channel strategies in place. service provider, enterprise, government, and research and education networks across the globe. What is your channel strategy for the region? In MEA, we work closely with our partners to introduce new services that enable their customers to unlock the value of their networks, bring new services to market and boost their competitive advantage. The Ciena BizConnect programme is aimed at empowering our partners, supporting them with key regional activities and training to keep them up-todate on the core technology trends.

Could you give me an overview of Ciena? Omar Alsaied, Middle East Carriers Sales Director, Ciena is the network Ciena specialist, providing leading network infrastructure solutions, intelligent software and a comprehensive services practice. We collaborate with customers worldwide to unlock the strategic potential of their networks and fundamentally change the way they perform and compete. Ciena leverages its deep expertise in packet and optical networking and distributed software automation to deliver solutions in alignment with its OPn architecture for building next-generation networks. We enable a high-scale, programmable infrastructure that can be controlled and adapted by network-level applications, and provide open interfaces to coordinate computing, storage and network resources in a unified, virtualised environment. The company’s solutions form the foundation of many of the largest, most reliable and sophisticated

Reseller Middle East

april 2014

What can the channel expect from Ciena in terms of innovation? We will continue to work with our partners to help them to compete in the rapidly evolving enterprise marketplace. We have recently made changes to the BizConnect programme to help open new doors to business growth, provide our partners with more profit opportunities, and serve to underline our continuing commitment to our partners’ success. These include a new focus on enabling our partners to provide a more robust and complete package of services for their enterprise client. Our partners can now offer Ciena-branded services directly to their enterprise customers, opening up new revenue streams and opportunities for higher margins. We also provide support, training, lab equipment, evaluations, certifications, existing customer upsell opportunities and new customer acquisition – helping our partners develop and expand their service offerings, do more front-line maintenance and be ready to provide the services that their customers need. As a result our

solution provider partners benefit from a robust and complete package of services for their enterprise clients. How is the region’s uptake to networking solutions? Growth in the MEA networking industry is promising, both for fixed line services and in the mobile market. In the enterprises landscape, organisations are focusing on reshaping their businesses to suit the rising industry demands. This is resulting in increased interest in cloud-based services, Big Data and innovative applications, all of which rely on resilient networks. This demand is driving innovation and increased focus on next-generation networks to transform enterprise service delivery, allowing ultra-high speed data transfers, bandwidth-on-demand and enhanced cloud service access. The ever increasing popularity of mobile services – due to smartphones and other connected devices – is driving increased mobile data traffic and operators in the Middle East are enhancing their mobile backhaul solutions, embracing Carrier Ethernet as they move from 3G to 4G LTE networks. Are there any challenges specific to this market? As with all markets, the Middle East hosts a broad range of businesses in across all sectors, as such it is vital to remain ahead of the IT trends to provide the best possible services to clients. In addition, the business landscape is ever changing, with new developments continuously arising and Middle East organisations expanding into other regions, resulting in an increased focus on connectivity, both terrestrial and submarine, to ensure seamless operations. What is your business outlook for this year? Technology has transformed and will keep redefining the way we do business, enabling growth and enhancing productivity. We are focussed on ensuring organisations are well placed to take advantage of all the benefits of an on-demand world, ensuring that network services align with on-demand cloud compute and storage services. //

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Vendor Focus

AOC-MMD

Driven to excel Vineeth Sebastian, Regional Sales Director-MEA, MMD and AOC, discusses in detail, its focused two-step channel strategy for 2014.

AOC-MMD has clear-cut channel strategies planned in the region. The first step is to establish tier-1 partners and then proceed to develop tier-2 channel. Segmenting the region into three geographical areas—Middle East, South Africa and Rest of Africa—, the brand is focusing on expanding its tier-1 distribution as of now. “What we are trying to do is through the market potential in each of these three regions, we are trying to arrive at our distribution partners. We have more

Reseller Middle East

april 2014

Vineeth Sebastian, Regional Sales Director-MEA, MMD and AOC

or less completed this process in most areas. This is our focus,” says Vineeth Sebastian, Regionals Sales DirectorMEA, MMD and AOC. Earlier in the year, the company had appointed Redington for distributing its products in Saudi Arabia and Jumbo Electronics to distribute for rest of the Middle East countries. “In some countries, we are following the policy of giving both the brands to one distributor. For example, in Saudi Arabia, Redington carries both the brands. In UAE, on the other hand, AOC is with Jumbo while Philips is with another distributor called Gulf Shadows. In GCC, which is rest of the Middle East, we have Jumbo doing both, AOC and Philips,” explains Sebastian. Strongly believing that only when the distributor makes enough margins to sustain his operations, will he focus on the vendor’s business, Sebastian further explains, “We are not focusing on multi-distribution. We only want one distributor per region. In UAE, we found that the partners for Philips may not be the same as AOC, so we were in a slight dilemma. Since, the Philips distributor cannot also do the AOC product, we appointed Jumbo for AOC. Otherwise, we would have followed the same strategy in the UAE as well. But the entire dynamics of Philips and AOC monitors are different, especially in UAE, which is why it is better to have two different distributors.” However, he points out that both distributors have been appointed for different brands, so that they don’t lose out by competing against each other. And as Redington is the sole distributor in Saudi for both brands, there is no question of clashing. Once the company sets up its

distribution line, it then plans to go one step further down and identify its tier-2 partners. Other than South Africa, the company is still in the process of doing this. The way the company operates in Europe today is that they don’t talk to distributors at all, “they are only logistics provider for us. The entire fulfillment, right from the order taking to the order with distribution is done by our sales guy sitting with tier-2. We have not yet entered this stage here. This is our channel strategy for second half of 2014,” Sebastian explains. The company hopes to increase its manpower, once Redington and Jumbo are online and then talk to tier-2, which in Dubai is essentially the resellers on Computer Street. “We will be doing incentive programmes for our partners at this level for both Philips and AOC, and that’s what we want to focus on, in the second half of 2014. It would be channel enablement for our tier-2 partners.” At the moment, the company has two online training programmes, MMD partnernet and AOC partnernet, which is at its disposal from its headquarters in Europe. All its partners can sign up into these programmes and obtain material, resources and artwork among other information. “If a partner requests for further clarity on certain aspects, then our sales people do travel to their premises and train them. Once we develop our tier-2 channel partners, then we can have organised training set ups. Currently we don’t require it as there are only three distributors. Once the tier-2 comes in, we will have dedicated training and personnel for it,” adds Sebastian. In terms of revenue, the company has always enjoyed a comfortable single digit number, however, it is expecting high double digit revenues for 2014. “We will be focusing on a double digit growth compared to 2013. And we have already set the tone for that. The growth is in expectation of 30 to 40 percent in this region,” he further adds. //

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Partner Watch

StarLink

Simplifying security Reseller ME speaks to Nidal Othman, Managing Director, StarLink, on the distributor’s extensive channel programme and plans for the year.

Earlier in the year, StarLink announced 2014 to be the ‘year of the channel’ at its annual partner conference, which means it plans to invest heavily in the channel eco-system with innovative partner programmes and incentives. And with its tenth anniversary around the corner, the value-added distributor aims to reach the 100 million dollar mark by next year, which is quite doable according to its MD. Nidal Othman, Managing Director, StarLink says, “Last year, we closed at around 50 million dollars turnover and this year we expect to close at 75 million dollars. We strongly believe the 100 million dollar by next year is doable and we are on track with a healthy pipeline of business.” Since its inception in 2005, StarLink has managed to build a name for

Reseller Middle East

april 2014

Nidal Othman, Managing Director, StarLink

itself in the niche security solutions market. Headquartered in Dubai, the value-added distributor is locally present in more than eight countries. With large operations in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman and Kuwait, the company also invested in Turkey last year. It has recently expanded into South Africa and is on the lookout to expand to certain countries in Europe by the second half of the year, where it can add value in terms of distribution, Othman says. Explaining about the company’s channel strategy, Othman adds that being a true value-added distributor, “we will not be existing in the market without our channel. So this year, we decided to make a special programme in order to offer more incentives to our channel. And by doing this, we feel we can offer better business margins to our partners so that they can enhance their profitability, when working with us.” The company’s recently launched partner programme, StarLink Choice, aims to reward partner success with targeted sales incentives and marketing programmes. This programme is open to all partners across the META region and covers all the solutions in its core, emerging and growth portfolios, which the company distributes to the market. “Although we are hundred percent channel-based, we have a high-touch model, when it comes to end user technology that we bring to the market. Because we understand how this technology works, we try to generate the demand awareness in the customer community, which will encourage the business partner to engage with this specific product line.” A new product or technology is usually introduced in the growth

product portfolio, where the company spends an average of six months to a year and a half, promoting the product directly with the end user. Under the growth portfolio, it is a high-touch model from the distributor’s end. And in the emerging portfolio, StarLink walks alongside with its business partner and is a mediumtouch model, wherein the partners may not want to invest too much and involves StarLink in certain operations such as presales. “With the core model, we have a low-touch from our side. The majority of products sitting in the core portfolio is driven by our business partner. And we offer them the typical valueadd and distributing services from the deployment, presales, support or training engagement. But usually all the core products are channel-driven opportunities. The products in the core portfolio had started in the growth category, and we have taken it to a state where it becomes a commodity product. And this is completely driven by the business partner,” Othman explains. Catering to four main enterprise sectors - banking, oil and gas, telecom and government - Othman adds that education and healthcare are also becoming more focused when it comes to deploying security solutions. “With one of the largest reach, we have managed to stayed focus on security. We have not expanded to other solution verticals, security is what we understand and what we excel in,” he adds. “Our aim is to make security very simple, even to the business partner in order to be able to carry the message to the end-user. I think with this strategy we have managed to change the landscape of distribution,” Othman says. //

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Xerox Emirates introduces Wide Format IJP 2000 Xerox Emirates, a joint venture between Xerox Corporation and Mohamed Hareb Al Otaiba, has recently launched the Wide Format IJP 2000 enabling it to keep up with the growing demand for large posters, signs, point-of-purchase graphics and banners in the UAE. Its key features include, faster print speeds: it completes jobs more than 40 times faster than comparable wide format systems (up to 4,520 square feet/420 square meters per hour), stationary print heads allow the paper to move under five print heads in one single pass, high vibrancy with instantly dry ink produce a variety

of full-colour products, from tradeshow banners and presentation graphics to life-size photos and promotional displays, expansive specialty media range allow printers to offer customers more choices in wide format applications, with media such as banner fabric, photo gloss, satin and backlit/stoplight films. With more media choices and water-resistant ink, it is ideal for indoor applications such as point-of-purchase signs, posters, banners and display graphics. It also has a unique workflow software, which means the Caldera Grand RIP+ keeps the device running at full-rated speed while processing jobs.

TP-LINK unveils 3G mobile WiFi sharing device - M5360 TP-Link has launched its 3G Mobile WiFi 5200mAh Power Bank. M5360 enables users to instantly establish a 3G hotspot and share wireless with several mobile devices on business or road trips. With the 5200mAh battery smart phones or tablets can be charged anywhere, making the M5360 an ideal travel companion. The M5360 supports SIM-based 3G connections of up to 21.6Mbps down and 5.76Mbps up, able to support several devices logging onto the mobile network at once. With an SD Card slot supporting up to 32 GB of data, the device also works as a storage device, making it a robust solution for the mobile business person or frequent traveler. With the 5200mAh battery, the M5360 is able to operate for 16 to 26 hours running typical applications or for 16 to 17 hours running bandwidth-heavy applications at full capacity.

Seagate launches seventh generation of surveillance drives Seagateâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s new Surveillance HDD is purpose-built for storing and accessing video analytics, improving data integrity, and keeping systems in the field longer. The Surveillance HDD is available in capacities up to 4TB and can store up to 480 hours of high-definition (HD) content making it the industryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s highestcapacity drive designed specifically for surveillance applications. Designed to support surveillance recordings from a number of cameras no matter their resolution requirements, the 3.5-inch drive supports up to 32 channels and easily handles the higher write workloads required by surveillance systems. It also supports the flexibility required to scale a surveillance solution, supporting more data for longer periods of time and meeting industry archive and resolution requirements. These features, coupled with the integrated R/V sensors, improve drive performance in multi-drive and RAID systems and increase the value of surveillance data. Designed to scale video storage, the drive now incorporates rotational vibration (RV) sensors enabling it to reliably perform in systems with up to 16 drives, making it ideal for small-tomedium businesses.

april 2014

Reseller Middle East

For deeper network security

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Sony showcases SmartBand SWR10 The SmartBand SWR10 works with Xperia Z2 to log one’s life in partnership with the Lifelog application, creating an automatic 24/7 diary of activities, entertainment and memories, says the company. Also, the wearable device’s customisable smart notifications delivers phone calls and notifications straight to the user’s wrist. Connection to SmartBand is done via NFC or Bluetooth with just ‘one-touch’. It is also completely waterproof (rated IP585) despite its exposed Micro-USB port, says the company. Initially available in Black, a variety of vibrant colour styles will be available after launch. It is designed to measure the user’s sleep cycle and to even wake up the user at the optimum time.

Sennheiser launches ‘Team-Connect’ Sennheiser Group has launched its cost effective and efficient audio conferencing solution TeamConnect to help Middle East businesses improve their productivity and streamline communications. It is an end-toend professional grade solution for standard meeting rooms with up to 16 users on site. The all-in-one system offers intuitive smartphone, tablet or laptop control and integrates speakers, mics, a central control unit and connectivity management to deliver conferencing capabilities ideal for businesses and public sector organisations.

It consist of the Central Unit CU1 - which offers both LAN and WiFi connectivity options, SpeechLine microphones and active loudspeakers. To enhance simplicity and ease-of-use, Sennheiser has specifically designed an iOS app that offers touchscreen control of web and audio conferences on iPad and iPhone. The system comprises up to eight Sennheiser SpeechLine microphones and features audio outputs that drive rich immersive sound from the active SpeechLine speakers which are also part of the package.

Huawei announces TalkBand B1 The Huawei TalkBand B1 is the hybrid ‘talk and track’ mobile companion to the MediaPad X1, another latest product from the company, featuring enhanced connectivity through wireless calling and daily activity tracking on-the-go. With a Bluetooth 4.1 wireless earpiece, TalkBand B1 enables up to seven hours of continuous calling and includes a 1.4-inch flexible OLED display. It is designed to support wireless calling on both Android 2.3+ and iOS 5.0+ compatible devices, and syncs effortlessly via NFC. It wirelessly tracks activity time and progress, including steps taken, miles covered and calories burned. It intelligently records the duration and quality of sleep, and has smart alarm and nap functions to assist rest, says Huawei. Weighing 26g and 14.6mm thin, the device features a bendable curve design that fits perfectly around the wrist. The 9.4g earpiece sits securely within the band of TalkBand B1 and is easily removable when needed. With a 90 mAh battery, TalkBand B1 lasts six days without the need to recharge, and takes two hours to charge using the USB connector.

april 2014

Reseller Middle East

Join the premier partner gathering in the Middle East as they discuss the latest trends that are together changing the IT landscape at Reseller Middle Eastâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Partner Excellence Conference 2014. Then, watch as the best of the region walk away with prized trophies in recognition of their efforts at Reseller Middle Eastâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Partner Excellence Awards 2014.

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Wearable technology

Reseller Middle East’s assistant editor offers her thoughts on the Middle Eastern technology channel.

Channel surfing

column

Will it wear off? I doubt anyone wears a watch today, just to know the time. A few years ago, it would have been hard to imagine how technology could transform the concept of a classic wrist watch. Today’s wearable devices are designed to do a lot more and works as an extension of the smartphone or other smart devices. What’s interesting to note is the fact that wearable technology has been around for some time now; the concept certainly has existed for decades. And like with any new concept, as the technology matures, it becomes more of a buzzword. However, I wonder if devices such as smart watches are here to stay? According to research from Endeavour Partners in the US, onethird of American consumers who have owned a wearable product stopped using it within six months. And having used the early version of Sony’s Smart Watch myself, I can certainly relate to this. The device could inform me who was calling. However, apart from canceling or putting it on silent, it didn’t provide an option to answer it. It gave all my notifications from emails, SMS to WhatsApp

messages. But within a few days, it was simply forgotten about. I found the design too bulky and besides, couldn’t find much of an use for it, when I had my smartphone with me too, all the time. The device I used didn’t have a fitness tracker, a heart monitor or a music player, the new features of some of the latest wearable devices. But according to a report in CCS Insight, a survey done in the US and UK indicated that from those who owned a smartwatch or a fitness tracker, 40 percent had stopped using it because they got disinterested with the idea or simply forgot about it. Wearable devices today, are capable of most or all of these functions – answering calls, tracking fitness, monitoring heartbeats and sleep patterns, playing music and notifying messages and emails. Huawei’s TalkBand B1 comes with a removable earpiece while Sony’s SmartBand SWR10 logs daily activities through an app called Lifelog and Samsung’s Gear 2 is an independent music player and has an inbuilt camera, among other things. However, even with all these functions, it remains to be seen how this technology can genuinely add value to the customer’s life. On the other hand, Google Glass sounds exciting and interesting. Imagine your voice being translated in to another language, directions to a new place in an instant, social media and basic image and video capturing capabilities – sounds like true value additions to me.

Janees Reghelini, Assistant Editor, Reseller ME

Reseller Middle East

april 2014

www.resellerme.com

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HP ProLiant DL360p Gen8 servers and HP ProLiant DL380p Gen8 servers powered by the Intel® Xeon® processor E5-2600 series *For details on claim substantiations, visit hp.com/servers/proliant © Copyright 2012 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. The information contained herein is subject to change without notice. The only warranties for HP products and services are set forth in the express warranty statements accompanying such products and services. Nothing herein should be construed as constituting an additional warranty. HP shall not be liable for technical or editorial errors or omissions contained herein. Intel, the Intel logo, Xeon, and Xeon Inside are trademarks or registered trademarks of Intel Corporation in the U.S. and/or other countries.