Reseller Middle East

PUBLICATION LICENSED BY IMPZ

ISSUE 186 // JUNE 2012 // WWW.RESELLERME.COM

PARTNER UP

REVIEW

The stage is set for the Reseller Middle East Partner Excellence Conference and Awards 2012

The Toshiba Portege Ultrabook is a heavy weight player in a light weight shell

FEATURE

N IEDTE W V O O C ORNKF ESR EE N C CUI RN IGT CYH A N N E L S

CONTENTS ISSUE 186 // JUNE 2012

HIGHLIGHTS 6

News

COVER FEATURE

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

EVENTS 27

Raising the curtain Following the success of the Partner Up Conference and Reseller Middle East Awards in 2011, we are ready to welcome the community to join us at a prestigious event that promises to be full of lessons and surprises

ANALYSIS 31

Game on At a recent roundtable, senior representatives from SAP discussed technology for SMEs and the role the channel plays in driving its operations across this booming space

32

Steady start The AccessData Group recently ventured into the region to cater to the demand for enterprise scale advanced security solutions. The company is now on the lookout for the right channel partners to help expand its reach and leverage the growing demand for these solutions at a significant competitive advantage

35

Money matters Booming as the channel industry is, resellers are often hindered in their ability to expand operations due to the limited availability of financing options in the region. We find out how this situation can be tackled

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Channelled beginnings

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The leaders behind some of the largest IT organisations in the region

REVIEW 71

76

We bring you the scoop on some of the coolest products on the scene

The philosopher Sudarsan Chakravarthy

Recently appointed territory channel manager at Brocade, Khaled Kamel tells us about the evolution of the channel and what he brings to the plate in his new role.

FEATURE 62

Snapshot Video conferencing represents a steadily maturing technology that offers the channel huge opportunities.

We speak to vendors and partners to discover how the adoption of VC solutions is advancing in the region and the outlook for the future.

75

78

The constant creative

Passion and profession

Abdalla Mustafa

Dan Smith

JUNE 2012

Reseller Middle East

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EDITORIAL Publisher Dominic De Sousa Group COO Nadeem Hood Managing Director Richard Judd richard@cpidubai.com +971 4 440 9126 EDITORIAL Senior Editor Sathya Mithra Ashok sathya@cpidubai.com +971 4 440 9111

The story continues

Assistant Editor Pallavi Sharma pallavi@cpidubai.com +971 4 440 9103 ADVERTISING Commercial Director Rajashree R Kumar raj@cpidubai.com +971 4 440 9131 Key Account Manager Merle Carrasco merle@cpidubai.com +971 4 440 9134 CIRCULATION Database and Circulation Manager Rajeesh M rajeesh@cpidubai.com +971 4 440 9147 PRODUCTION AND DESIGN Production Manager James P Tharian james@cpidubai.com +971 4 440 9146 Art Director Kamil Roxas kamil@cpidubai.com +971 4 440 9112 Designer Analou Balbero analou@cpidubai.com +971 4 440 9104 Photographer Cris Mejorada cris@cpidubai.com +971 4 440 9108 DIGITAL www.rwme.net DIGITAL SERVICES Digital Services Manager Tristan Troy P Maagma Web Developers Jerus King Bation Erik Briones Jefferson de Joya Social Media & SEO Co-ordinator Jay Colina online@cpidubai.com +971 4 440 9100 Published by

Pallavi Sharma Assistant Editor Talk to us: E-mail: pallavi@cpidubai.com Facebook: www.facebook.com/ ResellerME Twitter: @ResellerME

It is an intense time here at Reseller Middle East as the team dives head on into preparations for the Reseller Middle East Partner Excellence Conference and Awards 2012. So much how much preparation is too much?

We’ve got some of the most prominent members of the community confirmed to speak at the Conference, addressing topics ranging from value addition right down to the future of the cloud channel. The venue has been prepped and we’re ready for an all out informative session that will be valuable even for the most experienced of us.

The Awards require a different breed of preparations, from the ambience right down to the culinary delights that will be served at the Gala dinner.

Of course the work doesn’t end there.

Despite the rush of the upcoming event that we are all so excited about, we have also managed to bring out the issue that is perhaps the most exciting (second of course to the Awards issue, look out for it next month).

I have thoroughly enjoyed writing the cover feature that is aimed at honouring the leaders behind the largest organisations in the region. I was lucky enough to have met most of them and I just have to say that I was in awe of each and every one of them. The importance of a good leader cannot be questioned and each of these individuals has contributed to their organisations by lending it their vision and influencing the culture with their personalities. I do not believe that their jobs are easy and yet they make it sound simple and far from impossible to achieve group CEO status. I salute the titans.

Suffice to say, May has been an interesting month. It has been a month of learning. I’ve finally understood the meaning of the word multi tasking and realised the value of a supportive team who has backed me every step of the way. I’ve realised that the channel is indeed all about its relationships, because why else would we be working so hard to bring them all together to share their experiences through the magazine and our events.

I have no doubts that this is only the beginning and as I go further, my relationship with this vibrant community will only get deeper.

I hope the story is the same for you. Do write into me at pallavi@ cpidubai.com or connect with us on Twitter @ResellerME.

1013 Centre Road, New Castle County, Wilmington, Delaware, USA Branch Office PO Box 13700 Dubai, UAE Tel: +971 4 440 9100 Fax: +971 4 447 2409 Printed by United Printing Press © Copyright 2012 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.

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HIGHLIGHTS News

Golden Systems and Kingston Technology sign distribution agreement

Ehsan Hashemi, COO of Golden Systems with Antoine Harb, business development manager – Middle East and Africa, Kingston Technology Europe Golden Systems Middle East (GSME), a distributor of IT products in the Middle East, today announced that it has signed a distribution agreement with Kingston Technology Europe, an affiliate of Kingston Technology Company, for the GCC region.

As per the partnership agreement, Golden Systems will promote and distribute Kingston ValueRAM memory product range through its solid channel network including

VARs, system builders and PC manufacturers throughout the GCC countries.

“Kingston Technology is a global leader in memory products and we are happy to sign this distribution agreement with them. The Kingston ValueRAM memory range complements our product portfolio of best-in-class global brands and we are confident that Kingston’s highquality memory modules products along with our quality service will provide unsurpassed

customer satisfaction. As Kingston looks to increase their footprint in the Middle East, our team is committed to offering them our full support to help them grow their market share further in this region,” says Ehsan Hashemi, COO of Golden Systems Middle East.

From component qualification and manufacturing to quality assurance monitoring, Kingston ValueRAM solutions inherit Kingston’s widely recognised expertise in creating highquality memory modules, the company said.

Commenting on the partnership, Antoine Harb, business development manager – Middle East and Africa, Kingston Technology Europe, said, “We are happy to sign Golden Systems as our distributor for the GCC region. They are one of the most valued distributors in the region with an established track record and a reputation for quality and service. Golden Systems has a dynamic and professional team and we are happy and excited about working closely with them.

With its invaluable experience and market knowledge in components distribution, Golden Systems is a perfect partner for Kingston as we focus on consolidating our market presence in the region. We are confident that this partnership will help us further expand our market reach, strengthen our brand and increase our market share in the GCC region.”

Haier appoints IBS as distributor for Egypt Home appliances vendor Haier Group Corporation has appointed International Business Systems (IBS) as its authorised distributor in Egypt. The new partnership enables Haier to offer its extensive home appliance and consumer electronics products for the first time to the Egyptian market.

IBS will extend Haier’s local presence in addition to actively promoting Haier’s award winning product lines. As the exclusive distributor, IBS will be responsible for developing an extensive dealer network

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and channel partnerships. IBS is considered one of the foremost distributors in Egypt, representing some of the world’s biggest computer and consumer electronics brands.

The appointment is also seen as Haier’s confidence and commitment in the Egyptian market, one of the largest consumer markets in the region. Hu Jianhua, Sales and Marketing Director, Africa and Middle East, Haier noted, “Haier’s new partnership allows us to establish a strong local presence in the Egyptian market, and complements our expansion in the Middle East. We consider the Egyptian market to

have tremendous potential and IBS will enable Haier to reach out to new customers as well as support one of the fastest growing consumer markets in the region.”

Mamdouh El Baz, CEO, IBS said, “We’re extremely proud to partner with the world’s number one major home appliances brand. With strategic distribution channels throughout Egypt, IBS is confident our partnership will result in strong brand awareness and sales activity for Haier’s products. We look forward to a long and mutually beneficial relationship.”

Westcon Group strengthens relationship with Juniper Networks Westcon Group, a value-added distributor of unified communications, network infrastructure, data centre, and security solutions with a global network of specialty resellers, recently announced the significant extension of its security portfolio in EMEA. The company said that it will offer partners access to the full range of Juniper Networks MX Series Routers.

“Juniper Networks continues to be an important partner throughout the EMEA theatre and especially in MENA, delivering resellers the software and systems necessary to transform the networking experience. Now, we’re taking the relationship to the next level with the availability of MX Series,” said Steve Lockie, MD, WestconME Group. “Westcon continues to invest heavily in the stocking and education for assembling custom MX Series Routers in our staging facilities. This expertise enables us to deliver configured solutions in extremely short time frames – a really great win for our resellers.”

The announcement comes shortly after Juniper Networks named Westcon ‘EMEA Distributor of the Year.’ The companies continue to expand on their strong relationship in an effort to capitalise on a significant market opportunity with resellers across EMEA. In addition to now offering the MX5, MX10, MX40 and MX80 routers, the relationship is also supported by a range of new services, from lead-time delivery to configure-to-order and new partner enablement programmes.

“Westcon continues to be a strong partner across Middle East and this expansion is a testament to its success,” said David Helfer, VP, partners at Juniper Networks. “As the company continuously demonstrates strong expertise and executes well against our vision of the new network built on simplicity, security, openness and scale, we now offer their resellers access to one of our most successful and versatile solutions.”

Dell and Red Hat collaborate for embedded solutions through OEM Partner Program Dell and Red Hat recently announced they have signed an agreement to produce Dell and Red Hat hardware, software solutions for IT manufacturers worldwide.

Enabling fast time-to-market and considerable cost reductions, Dell OEM Solutions group, as part of its recently announced Dell OEM Partner Program, will offer flexible, integrated systems based on Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Red Hat JBoss Middleware Solutions, it was reported. Now manufacturers can customise Dell Precision and PowerEdge platforms and

utilise the performance and reliability of Red Hat’s offerings with approved terms and conditions, representatives said.

“This newly announced extension of our successful ten-year collaboration means that Dell and Red Hat today can serve the most demanding builders of technology solutions,” said Dion Cornett, VP, strategic alliances at Red Hat. “Appliance and application vendors leveraging the trusted brands and proven solutions of Dell and Red Hat, integrated into a cohesive and readily consumable offering, will enjoy compelling value.”

helpAG and Excitor in strategic partnership to tap the regional mobility market help AG, a strategic information security consulting specialist in the Middle East, has announced that it has signed a partnership agreement with Excitor, an enterprise mobility solutions provider. help AG is now able to offer the revolutionary DME software solution from Excitor which helps organisations mobilise mail and applications within a secure container on a wide range of devices, the company said. DME includes tools to deploy, use, manage and control mobile services in a highly secure manner.

“The Middle East has always been an early adopter of technology and this definitely holds true for the enterprise mobility market. We have been approached by a number of our customers who are eager to implement BYOD but have genuine concerns regarding the security of such devices. Currently, most enterprise mobility solutions focus on device and application management on the mobile endpoint but lack information security features as they do not offer separation between private and corporate data. This agreement with Excitor significantly strengthens our partner portfolio in the mobile technology industry and we look forward to making a big impact on the market with this solution,” said Stephan Berner, MD at help AG. Alison Henderson, VP sales and marketing at Excitor, said, “help AG is a well established and highly trusted security adviser and integrator in the region. At Excitor, our growth strategy has always been to partner with organisations that add compelling value for the end users, particularly in the security space. The security inherent in DME is a perfect fit with help AG’s existing security offerings and we look forward to a long and successful partnership with them.”

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HIGHLIGHTS News

Fortinet rolls out new channel initiatives

Fortinet has announced a series of channel initiatives that support the company’s ongoing objective of creating value for, and getting commitment from, its resellers and distributors internationally. Those additional programs and tools focus on education, profit and proximity, to help increase the expertise and profitability of Fortinet’s channel partners across the EMEA and APAC regions.

Fortinet has focused these initiatives around three key areas including education, profit and proximity.

The company reported that it’s new Authorised Training Centres (ATCs) program is designed to provide additional sales benefits to existing ATCs and foster the presence of ATCs at the local level.

This selective program evaluates the performance and commitment of each ATC and requires the provision of highly qualified instructors, representatives said.

The objective is to help increase the product expertise of Fortinet’s reseller community through access to localised training on Fortinet’s solutions portfolio.

As part of this initiative Fortinet has also developed a series of marketing tools, which include free online webinars and targeted channel communications depending on the partner’s status and product specialisation.

The company has also introduced an all new deal registration tool aimed at protecting channel partners who actively identify new business opportunities and comprehensively share them with Fortinet.

Fortinet has also developed a simple and intuitive Web-based interface, called the Renewal asset tracking tool, designed to help resellers identify renewal income opportunities through: unit and subscription services tracking; view on FortiCare /FortiGuard®contracts information; and identification of upgrade or upsell opportunities.

According to representatives, Fortinet’s recently launched mobile application gives partners easy access to Fortinet’s product

information and threat research updates.

Developed for the Apple iPhone and Google Android operating systems, the application includes: a search engine to access full product information; a FortiGate identification tool to help find the right device according to the client’s specific security requirements; a partner and Fortinet office locator; and access to the FortiGuard Security Center for real-time updates on the latest global threat levels and the Top 10 threats list (according to main regions and malware types).

The company has also rolled out a new Distributor RMA program to encourage distributors to act as local RMA centres in order to provide best-class delivery, including next business day delivery, to Fortinet’s resellers. Finally, Fortinet has also implemented local toll free numbers in most countries across the EMEA and APAC regions to facilitate partner service and support.

“Fortinet sells exclusively through its channel partners. Pursuing our goal of becoming the leading network security vendor, it is thus paramount that we keep improving our channel strategy in order to foster the business opportunities of our resellers and distributors,” said Emilio Roman, vice president of international sales operations at Fortinet. “Today’s channel initiatives are designed to help further support our resellers and reward our highvalue partners, who truly invest in our brand, technology and products.”

Gartner names Actifio a ‘Cool Vendor’ in storage technology Actifio, the Protection and Availability Storage (PAS) platform company, has announced it was chosen as one of Gartner’s Cool Vendors in Storage Technologies for 2012.

Gartner researched a number of emerging companies and selected five it felt “provide innovative storage capabilities and contain the costs associated with storage and storage management.”

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According to the company, Actifio PAS is the industry’s first storage platform to introduce virtualisation into data management addressing IT’s most pressing challenges – backup, disaster recovery, business continuity, test and development, analytics and compliance We believe being named a Cool Vendor

by Gartner confirms what Actifio users have been experiencing for several years – a

radically simple approach to backup, disaster recovery, business continuity, and test and development,” said Ash Ashutosh, founder and CEO of Actifio. “End-to-end virtualisation of the IT stack delivered by Actifio’s PAS Platform is key to transforming IT into a cloud service, private or public, delivered at an unprecedented low cost point. We’re honored to be recognised by Gartner and for being named in this year’s Cool Vendors report.”

HIGHLIGHTS News

Optimus signs with Bitdefender

Khalid Muasher, business development manager at Bitdefender, Meera Kaul, MD, Optimus Technology and Communications Optimus Technology and Telecommunications has signed a distribution agreement with Bitdefender for the MENA region including Pakistan and Afghanistan.

As per the agreement, Optimus will promote and distribute Bitdefender’s range of end point, gateway and server security products and will create and establish

Bitdefender’s value channel network by conducting channel development activities for its value added resellers, systems integrators and distributors.

“As a VAD whose focus is on ensuring that our partners have access to the latest solutions from the best global vendors, Optimus is always on the lookout for reputed

vendors whose products complement our existing product portfolio and can assist our partners to create long lasting relationships with their end customers,” said Meera Kaul, MD of Optimus Technology and Telecmmunications.

Optimus, being a recognised and trusted value added distributor, was a perfect choice given their expertise in selling and delivering superior customer service.

Optimus also has the required market knowledge, experience and a solid channel network to help our growth strategy for this region,” said Khalid Muasher, business development manager at Bitdefender.

As part of the agreement, Optimus now plans to conduct focused channel development activities such as training and consultancy to partners to enable them to sell Bitdefender’s solutions. Through its valueadded services portfolio called Optims 360, Bitdefender resellers will be offered training, certifications, skill development, consultancy services to help them sell solutions; marketing as a service through Optimus Primero; and an entire host of capacity building services to enable them to position and sell the product efficiently and effectively.

The company will also train partners to enhance their service capabilities and address customer requirements appropriately through their training arm, Optimus Academy.

Dell announces additions to PowerEdge portfolio Dell recently announced additions to the PowerEdge portfolio with new blade, rack and tower servers designed to deliver value and performance in demanding enterprise and mainstream environments.

The new blade servers offer strong performance gains and improved efficiencies from the shared power, cooling and network infrastructure, and professional IT services. The new tower and rack servers are built to enhance customer IT infrastructures with enterprise-class capabilities and tailored chassis designs for small and midsize businesses, Dell representatives said.

Dell introduced industry-leading

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innovations in the PowerEdge 12th generation servers based on input gathered from more than 7,700 customer interactions in 17 countries across four continents, it was reported. The company was the first-to-ship servers based on the Intel Xeon processor E5-2600 product family with the first wave of PowerEdge 12th generation servers in March 2012.

Dell is experiencing exceptional demand for the first wave of PowerEdge 12th generation servers from customers around the globe looking to power their most demanding workload requirements.

We are now pleased to introduce a second wave of 12th generation servers that delivers

exceptional value for performance and continues our successful integration of customer feedback and design requirements.

Dell is enabling customers to deliver results faster through our tight integration of Dell servers, storage, networking, client and services that take advantage of Dell’s latest innovations resulting from both R&D and key acquisitions of IP,” said Forrest Norrod, VP and GM, Dell Server Solutions.

For the full story, please visit http://bit.ly/KJKDCe

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HIGHLIGHTS News

Dubai Police nabs trader of counterfeit toners Agents of Dubai Police’s Anti-Economic Crimes Unit have arrested a local trader who was found selling counterfeit ‘Brother’ toners. The arrest followed after a successful raid conducted by the police on the suspect’s showroom and warehouse, where a large number of the fake toners were seized.

Expressing their appreciation, Brother International (Gulf ) FZE, a provider of home and business IT peripherals that focuses on the ‘Customer-First’ approach, lauded Dubai Police and its Anti-Economic Crimes Unit for their continuing efforts to curb product piracy and prevent the proliferation of counterfeit products in the local market.

According to reports, the company extended their support and assistance to the police by helping them determine the difference between authentic ‘Brother’ toners and their fake counterparts. The company’s cooperation with the local authorities was also made possible through

the key legal guidance of Legal Consultants.

The arrested trader will be charged with a breach of the intellectual property rights of Brother International (Gulf) FZE with the seized fake items to be used as prima facie evidence, it was announced.

“We extend our thanks and gratitude to Dubai Police and its AntiEconomic Crimes Unit for the successful raid that they have recently conducted, which has resulted in the seizure of a large volume of fake ‘Brother’ toners. We would also like to thank our Legal Consultants for their support,” said Soichi Murakami, MD, Brother International (Gulf ) FZE. “Local UAE agencies and authorities have implemented key programs and initiatives to help aid the campaign against all forms

of product piracy, with the chief aim of protecting both the consumer and the companies who manufacture authentic products. Rest assured, we will remain steadfast in our commitment to assist and aid local police authorities and help curb the proliferation of counterfeit products in the local market.”

Acer launches Aspire S5 in the UAE

Acer has launched what it claims to be the world’s thinnest Ultrabook, measuring 15mm at the maximal point and weighing less than 3lbs.

The Aspire S5, which is the latest in

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Acer’s S Series of Ultrabooks, features the ‘Acer Green Instant On’ technology for fast boot and resume, and ‘Acer Always Connect’, which lets users manage their multimedia and data on their devices at any time.

Acer Green Instant On provides resume functionality in 1.5 seconds and ensures battery life that last “several weeks.”

A 13.3 inch LCD screen and magnesium-aluminium alloy cover make up the aesthetic features of the Ultrabook, whilst it also pitches itself as the first Ultrabook to feature a ‘MagicFlip I/O’ port panel concealed just below the hinge. When needed, a press

of the MagicFlip key opens the panel to reveal HDMI, USB 3.0 and 20 Gbps Thunderbolt ports.

The Ultrabook is much more than just a product segment. It’s a new trend that will become the mainstream for mobile PCs, and customers will see the unique features gradually extended across Acer’s notebook family,” said Jim Wong, president of Acer.

Although pricing was not officially revealed, a spokesman said the Aspire S5 will cost around AED5,000.

For the full story, please visit http://bit.ly/J7rkoN

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HIGHLIGHTS News

Huawei welcomes Leasecon to partner community

Dong Wu, Huawei Enterprise, Middle East Huawei, a global information and communications technology (ICT) solutions provider, announced today that Leasecon WLL is the latest partner to join its channel programme.

In the enterprise market, Huawei has put in place a product and solution portfolio that spans enterprise network infrastructure, enterprise communications, data centres and industry applications, the company said.

It is seeing increasing interest from Middle East organisations in ICT solutions such as cloud computing that have the potential to completely redesign the way they do business, and is investing in its channel partner ecosystem to meet this regional demand, representatives added.

Leasecon, a Qatar-based electrical instrumentation provider in systems integration was selected by Huawei to join its channel partner programme because of its planned expansion into the existing

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oil and gas and infrastructure markets, areas where Huawei has several flagship customers. Leasecon was selected for Huawei’s channel partner programme because of the company’s foothold in Qatar, a market which Huawei understands well since the company established itself in the country in 2003, it was reported.

Dong Wu, VP, Huawei Enterprise, Middle East, said, “Our focus at this stage

is to develop the Huawei Enterprise partner network. We are committed to growing relationships with the right channel partners in the right vertical sectors. Huawei Enterprise’s channel strategy is to build strong relationships with a core community of trusted and valued partners, and with Leasecon’s strong growth ambitions and established local presence, we felt they were qualified on several levels to become a member of this community.”

Leasecon intends to begin by offering IP telephony solutions to the market, expanding to other solutions addressing the needs of the energy and power sectors in due course. Its primary market focus is on oil gas, power and infrastructure businesses such as retail, sea ports and airports.

Sheikh Rashid bin Awaida Al Thani, chairman of Leasecon WLL, added, “Leasecon is undergoing a step-change in its business strategy, translating its skills to meet the needs of customers looking for ICT solutions. A partner like Huawei can not only provide high quality products and services but also has the time to work closely with us as we gain a foothold in this new area.”

Wu concluded, “We place a big focus on investing in training partners so they are well-equipped to represent Huawei Enterprise products to customers and prospects. We will help Leasecon train its expanding workforce and provide support to its marketing and lead generation programmes so it can hit the ground running with its new market offering.”

Huawei Enterprise’s channel strategy is to build strong relationships with a core community of trusted and valued partners, and with Leasecon’s strong growth ambitions and established local presence, we felt they were qualified on several levels to become a member of this community.

HIGHLIGHTS News

Oracle prepares partners with new Oracle PartnerNetwork training Oracle has announced the availability of new Oracle Fusion Application training and certification resources available through the Oracle PartnerNetwork (OPN).

“Oracle Fusion Applications represent a tremendous opportunity for our partner community to expand and grow their businesses with Oracle,” said Joel Borellis, group vice president, Partner Enablement, Oracle. “Oracle has engaged our partner community since the early development days of Oracle Fusion Applications and the new training and enablement resources offered through OPN will help them gain the skills and expertise they need to become specialized. With a specialised distinction, partners can differentiate their offerings, while providing our joint customers direct access to deeply knowledgeable Oracle experts that can ease their transition to Oracle Fusion Applications.”

The initiative is expected to equip partners with the skills required to sell, implement, develop and acquire specialisation in Oracle Fusion Applications, OPN now offers more than 1,000 free online implementation-focused training courses, it was reported.

The company also announced that Partners may also take advantage of over 23 instructor-led training implementation-focused courses through Oracle University.

Partners may begin applying for Oracle Fusion Applications Specialisation in summer 2012 and can begin taking the Oracle Fusion Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Oracle Fusion Human Capital Management (HCM) and Oracle Fusion Financials implementation Specialisation beta exams immediately.

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New RPost partner program provides enhanced integration and patent protection RPost, a provider of registered email services, recently announced a new partner program which provides a webbased console to configure services, and aggressive enforcement of 36 patents covering email legal delivery proof, encryption, e-signature, and large file transfer to assure partner revenues.

Under the direction of a new vice president of alliances Wei Lin, the move enables partners to better serve their customers, while protecting them from competitors who would infringe on their protected revenue streams, the company said.

Partners can now build into their processes the ability to provision customers access to RPost services (set up trials, new users, configure some settings, and reporting) using an RPost provided web console (one for partner admin,

one for partner sales) or use an RPost API to add this to their existing administration panels. This enhances partners’ ability to manage customer needs in real time, and tightly integrate RPost services into customer processes.

“We are committed to helping RPost partners win new business with protected services that are the best in the marketplace,” said Zafar Khan, CEO, RPost. “To solidify this commitment, we are pleased to welcome Wei Lin to the RPost team as vice president of alliances. Lin has been in the electronic messaging business for more than 15 years, most recently as chief intellectual property officer of McAfee. The US Patent Office re-examined all 89 claims of a main RPost patent and concluded that they are novel, patentable, and valid. RPost is vigorously enforcing these patent rights to assure its partners that their novel offerings will maintain their competitive edge.”

Sony Mobile Communications appoints new global head of sales and marketing

Dennis van Schie corporate VP, head of sales and marketing at Sony Mobile Communications.

Sony Mobile Communications has appointed Dennis van Schie as corporate VP, head of sales and marketing.

Reporting to Kunimasa Suzuki, President and CEO, Sony Mobile Communications, he will be based in

London, UK. Kunimasa Suzuki, president and CEO, Sony Mobile Communications said, “Dennis has been instrumental in defining Sony’s smartphone offering and guiding the transition from feature phones to the Xperia smartphone portfolio. Dennis is particularly proficient

in operations and developing products that meet customer needs through drawing upon their feedback. His expertise will contribute to Sony Mobile’s future success.”

Schie holds more than 10 years of experience working for Sony Mobile (formerly Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications). In his previous role at the company as head of product business unit, Schie was responsible for product planning and development in addition to managing the Xperia smartphone portfolio He said, “Xperia smartphones are a vital element of Sony’s convergence strategy. Sony Mobile will continue to deliver outstanding hardware and iconic design as well as a strong ecosystem of content and services to offer unrivaled connected entertainment experiences.”

Brocade appoints new global channel head

Regan McGrath, vice president of global channel sales and marketing at Brocade Brocade has announced the appointment of Regan McGrath as vice president of global channel sales and marketing, taking over the role from Barbara Spicek.

The appointment is one of several changes in Brocade’s sales leadership team, designed to align sales leadership with growth opportunities, create operational efficiencies and increase enterprise agility, it was reported. The internal restructuring comes at a time when Brocade is driving the adoption of

Ethernet fabric technology and innovative networking solutions globally and here in the Middle East.

The newly appointed executives have been assigned the task of cementing channel partnerships, spearheading channel enablement programs and driving growth in key regions and business areas, the company said. The leaders were promoted from within the company, facilitating immediate collaboration and integration among the teams.

McGrath is the former vice president of sales for the Americas region with over 25 years of IT industry experience working with end users, OEMs and channel sales markets. In his current role, he will oversee Brocade’s global channel programs with a special focus on the campus LAN business which traditionally has not seen innovation for many years until Brocade unveiled the company’s vision for The Effortless Network and introduced Brocade HyperEdge technology, the company added. The technology is designed to deliver new levels of automation

and simplification of the campus LAN lifecycle—with significant cost savings and investment protection.

Barbara Spicek, who has handed over the reins to McGrath will return to her native Germany and oversee the company’s Europe, Middle-East and Africa (EMEA) OEM business unit. Tom Ellery, formerly vice president of sales for Enterprise LAN, will step into the role previously held by McGrath.

“As we continue to advance towards a channel-led sales model to grow Ethernet market share globally, we need strong sales leadership with experience in all aspects of the sales cycle and go-to-market strategies to fully capitalise on growth opportunities within service provider, campus LAN, enterprise data centre and storage networking environments,” said Ian Whiting, senior vice president of worldwide sales at Brocade.

The company has also announced a number of other appointments, for more details please visit http://resellerme. com/news/brocade-appoints-new-globalchannel-head/

Logicom launches Cisco Networking Lab for SMB partners in the UAE Logicom recently launched its first Cisco Technology Lab for SMB partners in UAE to give resellers a first hand experience of the company’s latest technology products and solutions.

The lab, which is located at Logicom’s Dubai office, is part of the distributor’s value-add offering to the channel partners.

The lab demonstrates customised network solutions for SMBs with key highlights on Cisco Smart business architectures. This also gives an overall experience of network solutions to new Cisco partners and encourages them to

switch on to Cisco solutions. Logicom also introduced various Cisco programs, solutions, trade-in offers to partners during the launch, representatives said.

The launch was attended by top Cisco personnel and SMB partners with great enthusiasm.

Sameena Naaz, Cisco product manager at Logicom Dubai said, “ The launch of this lab is one of our many initiatives to reinstate and complement Cisco GTM of Partner led, with increasing Logicom’s focus on the distribution led or the unmanaged long tail of partners.

Our business partners can take away from this lab ready-to- use solutions which they may supplement with their value add services. We want to enable our partners to provide solution offerings that they can demonstrate at our lab to their end clients. During the launch we have communicated and initiated campaigns around programs like Collaboration Breakaway and Trade-in that can help resellers increase their bottom line. The key mantra is partners can become profitable when they switch to Cisco.”

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HIGHLIGHTS News

Twice as many SMBs will be heavily virtualised by 2014, say EMEA resellers

VMware, a provider of virtualisation and cloud infrastructure solutions, has announced that the EMEA solution provider channel is seeing SMBs investing substantially in virtualisation, with this continuing to be an IT spend priority.

According to new research, the acceleration of virtualisation adoption will see twice as many SMBs become more than 80% virtualised by 2014, as they look to drive efficiencies and embrace a move toward cloud computing.

The research, conducted by Canalys among 350 channel partners serving SMBs across EMEA, found that of SMBs who have adopted virtualisation, 48% have virtualised the basic IT infrastructure of their businesses. Over the next two years, however, 75% of SMBs are expected to expand their virtualisation programs to include business-critical applications and more. In fact, channel partners predict that 38% of these companies will have more than 80% of their businesses virtualised, as they move toward IT as a Service, up from 20% of companies today.

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According to research analysts, the reasons behind this extend beyond pure cost savings. While reducing costs is the more immediate driving factor (rated most important and second most important by 71% of respondents) to virtualise, it’s closely followed by the desire to ensure business continuity and improve hardware utilisation, they said. In terms of the over arching business priorities for SMBs, beyond technology, cost reductions (rated as highly important or important by 83%), business continuity (79%) and business agility (75%) emerge as the top three, showing alignment between immediate virtualisation drivers and longer-term objectives. Furthermore, the majority (86%) agree that virtualisation and cloud computing are connected.

“SMBs are undoubtedly recognising the many benefits virtualisation can deliver,” said Alastair Edwards, principal analyst, Canalys. “It’s a tough economic environment at the moment. With organisations being pulled in many different directions, and costs being scrutinised at every step. Virtualisation is being seen

as a solution that delivers cost savings as well as broader business benefits. As a result, within two years, channel partners predict that SMBs are planning a rapid rate of virtualisation adoption, with the majority of SMBs realising the benefits that heavily virtualised environments can deliver.

Savvy organisations are those making the connection between IT investment and more holistic business priorities, and are virtualising today to gain competitive advantage.”

Of the main barriers holding back further adoption, upfront costs and virtualisation not registering as a short-term priority were those cited by channel partners supplying the SMB market. Tellingly, a lack of understanding was the third decisive factor, suggesting the need for further education from vendors and partners on exactly what virtualisation can deliver.

“Many tens of thousands of SMBs across EMEA have already embraced virtualisation and this research indicates this may just be the tip of the iceberg in terms of the depth and breadth of SMB adoption,” said John Churchhouse, EMEA SMB director at VMware. “VMware has intensified its commitment to SMBs through its Real World Advantage initiative and offers products and bundles tailored to their specific needs. There’s a tremendous opportunity here for channel partners to work collaboratively with VMware to drive awareness for SMBs and jointly assist them on their virtualisation journey and the move to cloud computing.”

As part of the research, Canalys also conducted 12 in-depth EMEA partner interviews on the major trends they are seeing in virtualisation amongst SMBs. Feedback from these reinforced the drivers for virtualisation raised in the study, but also the need for greater support in educating end users, including: joint marketing activities (both campaigns and roadshows), increased training and certification, and more tailored finance packages and solution bundles.

HIGHLIGHTS News

GBM appoints Andreas Weiss as director of IBM Systems and Technology

Andreas Weiss, director of IBM Systems and Technology at Gulf Business Machines (GBM)

Gulf Business Machines (GBM), a leading IT solutions provider, recently announced the appointment of Andreas Weiss as the new director of IBM Systems and Technology Brands. In his new role, Weiss will have the business responsibility for GBM’s Hardware unit and will lead the consolidation, virtualisation and infrastructure optimisation initiatives for our customers.

Cesare Cardone, CEO of GBM said, “Andreas brings along over 25 years of experience in the IT industry across over 50 countries. He has extensive experience in the region which is crucial to driving GBM’s goal, providing our customers with the latest IBM cuttingedge technologies that lead to more advanced and reliable IT infrastructures.”

Having worked at IBM for 26 years, Weiss joins GBM with extensive IT

experience in a variety of roles spanning from sales, marketing and brand management. During his time at IBM, he managed and excelled the Storage Business Unit for IBM Central Europe and Middle East with sustainable growth for eight years. He was recognized for his work with several ‘Race for Success’ awards and ‘Best Brand’ recognitions.

Commenting on his appointment, Weiss said: “I am enthusiastic to begin my new mission at GBM. Bringing my years of experience to bear, I aim to drive the implementation of successful strategies that will provide additional value for our customers by providing IT infrastructure optimization. The overall goal is to ensure we continue to deliver the most innovative IBM systems solutions available that fits to the customer needs.”

Jabra and Westcon Middle East Group partner-up for MENA, Pakistan and Afghanistan Jabra, a provider of innovative handsfree communications solutions, has appointed Westcon Middle East as a distributor for the Middle East, Pakistan and North Africa regions.

Under the agreement, Westcon Middle East Ltd. will distribute the entire suite of Jabra UC-optimised headsets through its strong reseller base to address rising enterprise market demand for Unified Communications (UC) solutions that include voice communications and collaboration.

“This latest regional co-operation builds on the successful partnership between Jabra and Westcon Group worldwide over the past years. It’s a natural continuation

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to the very deep and fruitful co-operation between the two companies, and we look forward to scaling the relationship into Middle East, Pakistan and North Africa given WestconGroup’s demonstrably strong track record in the region,” said Hanny Hanna, regional manager Jabra Middle East, Africa and Turkey. “Jabra offerings for UC voice solutions complete Westcon Group’s portfolio of convergence products by leading technology vendors including Avaya and Cisco. We will work in close co-operation to leverage synergies, to strengthen brand recognition through joint marketing activities and to meet market needs.”

“Jabra products are a natural extension to the group’s range of solutions and services for the high-growth markets of MENA region” said Steve Lockie, group managing director, Westcon Middle East Group. “In the increasingly fast-paced virtual world we operate in, there is no limit to the hosts of networks connecting us to our customers, partners, peers, colleagues etc. Jabra wireless headsets are the vital business tools that simplify connectivity and deliver productivity benefits to the end-users.”

Westcon Group was awarded the EMEA Distributor of the Year by Jabra at the partner conference in Rome in February 2012.

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HIGHLIGHTS News

EMC expands partner cloud opportunities EMC Corporation has announced new initiatives and products to enable the company’s worldwide network of channel partners to accelerate their customers’ journey to cloud computing. The new EMC Cloud Builder and Cloud Provider Practices, EMC Cooperative Services provide EMC partners with the industry’s most comprehensive and flexible cloudenabling capability.

At EMC’s first annual Global Partner Summit (GPS) at EMC World in Las Vegas this week, Joe Tucci, EMC Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, and EMC sales and channel leaders, presented to more than 3,000 partners these new programs and technologies, as well as other initiatives that enable EMC channel partners to transform IT, business and themselves in order to maximise their customers’ cloud computing opportunities.

The new practices announced include the EMC Velocity Solution Provider Practices – a new branded designation within the Velocity Solution Provider

Program that recognises advanced levels of capability. Achievement of a Velocity Practice signifies a partner’s value in delivering leading-edge solutions. It recognises high-value skills in pre-sales, sales and services, across a broad set of technology solutions needed to address customers’ strategic business initiatives.

The Cloud Builder Practice enables partners to successfully design, build and manage cloud infrastructures based on EMC technology. The Cloud Provider Practice enables Velocity Solution Provider partners with advanced capabilities to design, build and operate their own branded IT-as-a-Service cloud offerings based on EMC technology.

The Cloud Builder Practice will be available starting in Q3 2012 and the Cloud Provider Practice will be available in Q4 2012. VMAX SP general availability is expected in 2013.

EMC also announced EMC Cooperative Services – a new service delivery model that gives partners an exclusive

opportunity to supplement their existing skills and investments and broaden their portfolio of services. The company said that the services are available to serviceenabled resellers who are part of the Velocity Solution Provider program and have achieved Velocity Specialty status.

In this unique delivery mode, EMC Global Services provides service components to the partner to incorporate into a larger customer deliverable using proven EMC methodologies, best practices and analytical tools. Partners own the customer relationship and service engagement and can choose to brand the overall service as their own, further strengthening their role as trusted technology partners to their customers, it was reported.

For the full story, please visit http:// resellerme.com/news/home-news-emcannounces-programmes-to-expandpartner-cloud-opportunities-at-emc-world2012-share-on-facebook-share-on-twittershare-on-email-share-on-print-moresharing-services-0-emc-an/

Aptec gets top awards at Schneider Electric Distribution Conference 2012 Aptec Holdings, a leading technology distributor operating across the Middle East, Pakistan, Turkey and North Africa, won five major awards at the recently held Schneider Electric Middle East and Africa Annual Distributor Conference 2012.

The recognition came for delivering the highest business growth, contribution to the brand and proactive channel development.

Aptec Distribution was proud to receive the major award of the night – Distributor of the Year 2011 for Middle East region. Track Distribution, subsidiary of Aptec Holdings, received H&BN Distributor of the Year award. Aptec Saudi was

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awarded Best SMB Distributor of the Year 2011 for the Middle East region. Aptec Turkey got Sales Development of the Year 2011 award, and Aptec Egypt received “Against All Odds” Award from Schneider Electric that night.

Essam Baghdadi, VP of Aptec Group, said, “We would like to thank Schneider Electric team and all our partners for these awards. APC by Schneider Electric is a key strategic vendor for Aptec for many years now, relationship with APC started more than 15 years ago and it only strengthens with years. These accolades are recognition of Aptec’s commitment to the brand and to

our partners in all countries we are present with this brand across the region.”

Earlier this month Aptec announced about the successful launch of APC in Pakistan as part of distributor’s agreement with the vendor of distribution territory expansion. Track Distribution, part of Aptec Holdings, and APC by Schneider Electric jointly celebrated the launch of Track Distribution Pakistan as the official distributor of APC in the country by inviting more than 70 reseller partners. Attended by over 140 executives from the channel, the event in Karachi was marked as a big success.

HIGHLIGHTS News

Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise signs FVC as authorised training partner for ME FVC, Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise’s authorised value added distributor in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, has been appointed its authorised training partner across the region.

FVC will now offer all AlcatelLucent Enterprise certification courses across its offices and training centres in the region. Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise will provide the course material for the training but the courses will be conducted by FVC’s certified team of trainers and in some areas in Arabic, it was reported.

“This is a natural progression for our partnership and we are pleased that our partners across the region will now not need to travel (too far) to be certified to support our solutions in the region,” said Alain Penel, VP sales and support, Middle East and Africa at Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise.

According to Penel, the initial training and certification will be offered across the GCC before being extended across the region.

K.S. Parag, MD at FVC added, “We have a commitment to our partners to provide them with all the resources they need to grow their business.

Being able to provide the right training and certification courses for AlcatelLucent Enterprise will also give them a better understanding of our range of solutions, helping them to optimise opportunities.”

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Red Hat appoints Arun Oberoi as executive VP, global sales and services Red Hat has announced the appointment of enterprise software industry veteran Arun Oberoi as executive VP of global sales and services.

Oberoi brings strong Arun Oberoi, executive VP, global go-to-market sales and services at Red Hat executive experience – including global leadership roles with HP and IBM – to Red Hat, where he will further develop the company’s sales and services strategy.

“As Red Hat continues to make strategic investments in our business and move into new markets, having seamless integration between sales and services and our technology vision is critical,” said Jim Whitehurst, president and CEO, Red Hat. “With his outstanding track record of

success and his global sales, services and management experience, I am very confident in Arun’s ability to help Red Hat capitalise on our opportunities as we meet our customers’ evolving technology and business needs.”

Oberoi comes to Red Hat from Viridity Software, a data centre infrastructure management start-up, where he served as president and CEO, doubling new customers every consecutive quarter in 2011, and seeing the company’s flagship product through its recent acquisition

by Schneider Electric. Prior to Viridity, Oberoi was CEO of Aveksa, an access governance and management software start-up, where he led the company to fast growth and a financing round for further expansion.

In his earlier roles, Oberoi was executive VP of worldwide sales and services at Micromuse, a provider of network and service management solutions. Micromuse was acquired by IBM, where Oberoi led the integration and its continued fast growth and field expansion as VP within IBM Tivoli.

Golden Systems organises seminar For PNY channel partners Golden Systems Middle East (GSME), a distributor of IT products in the Middle East recently organised a PNY seminar and training program for their channel partners in Kuwait.

The seminar focused on PNY Technologies latest solutions such as the NVIDIA-based Professional QUADRO Graphics solutions.

“PNY has a wide range of professional graphic solutions that cater to professional users looking for high quality, performance and long life cycle, architects, game creators,

video, cinema, animation designers and industry designers to name a few. Ever since we signed up with PNY, we have seen lots of interest from our customers on their NVIDIA Quadro Graphics cards,” said Iman Mozaffari, sales and product director at Golden Systems Middle East.

According to representatives, global experts from PNY flew down to present on new technology, demonstrate their wide range of products as well as share the company’s vision with the local channel.

Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar and Yemen

HIGHLIGHTS News

EMC and MDS host virtualisation event for end users

Global IT giant EMC, along with MDS Systems Integration, brought together more than 70 end-users at an exclusive event to discuss virtualisation and IT strategies in Dubai last month.

“The event brought together end-users from across the UAE to discuss the benefits

of virtualisation, and the relevance of big data to growing organisations. There were also various conversations on the set of EMC solutions and their aptness for organisations in the country,” said Hadi Nader, GM of storage solutions at MDS Systems Integration.

MDS is focused on providing consultancy,

designing and delivering solutions and equipment, along with implementing them and providing after-sales support to the EMCportfolio in relation to its storage and data management solutions.

According to Nader, the market needs for storage and data management in the UAE alone would average around $300 million, and is set to increase as more organisations get interested in the area of big data.

“EMC’s portfolio is very comprehensive and diversified. And our main aim is to address the necessity of mid-size as well as enterprise organisations to fulfil their needs related to data and to ensure business continuity. MDS has a defined and clear strategy to continue investing in resources because they are the main asset for the company and provides the base for further growth. We are investing yearly on resources across both our Dubai and Abu Dhabi offices. We have a very stable plan in place in order to achieve the demand in the market and to support our growing end-user base,” concluded Nader.

Comendo and Bulwark Technologies host E-mail security forum for resellers and end-users Comendo,an E-mail security and backup provider along with their value added distributor, Bulwark Technologies, recently organised an E-mail security forum for Bulwark’s reseller and end-user community in Abu Dhabi.

The forum held under the theme “Secure your e-mail, maximise business efficiency” was intended to refresh and update the channel partners as well as the customers on Comendo’s proprietary solutions for cloud e-mail filtering and backup. At the event, Comendo also communicated its vision and outlined strategies for mutual growth and expansion,

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besides discussing emerging business opportunities with the channel audience.

The forum also provided insights into Comendo’s data centres, which are secured and well-equipped with the latest technologies to ensure the highest uptime.

Comendo operates five data centres worldwide including the one in Dubai, to provide its customers in the region easier and quicker accessibility to services.

Jose Thomas, MD of Bulwark Technologies said, “By bringing together the partners, end-users and the vendor under one platform, the event created better opportunities for networking and

for engaging in meaningful dialogues.

Secured e-mail communication is an important challenge not to be overlooked by businesses to maximise efficiency and productivity.”

Houda Naji, MD, Comendo said, “This was an occasion for us to express our commitment towards the channel and the end-user community in Abu Dhabi, by addressing their concerns, besides apprising them of our existing product range and new products such as mailContinuity. We look forward to supporting such initiatives by our distributor partner Bulwark to benefit the resellers and the clients in the region.”

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www.magirus.com

Magirus Middle East FZ LLC | Dubai Internet City - Bldg. 3 | P.O. Box 500168 | UAE | Dubai | Phone: +971 4391 4470 | email: virtualization.me@magirus.com Magirus Arabia | Office 5&6, Ground Floor, Leaders Tower Building | Al Olaya Street | P.O.Box 84866 | Riyadh 11681 | Saudi Arabia | phone: +966 543885933

EVENTS Reseller Middle East Partner Excellence Conference and Awards

RAISING THE CURTAIN Following the success of the Partner Up Conference and the Reseller Middle East Awards in 2011, we are once again ready to welcome the community to join us at a prestigious event that promises to be full of lessons and surprises.

Reseller Middle East together with publisher CPI and HP are once again ready to host the Reseller Middle East Partner Excellence Conference and Awards 2012.

The annual Conference and Awards have become, in a manner of speaking, a tradition within the region’s booming IT channel industry. This year, the event will run under the theme ‘Partner Excellence’ for that is exactly what we aim to do; recognise the ground breaking efforts of the prominent vendors, distributors, resellers, retailers and systems integrators of this vibrant community.

The daylong Conference that precedes the Awards will combine the knowledge of key industry stakeholders to share best practices, highlight emerging opportunities and together address the challenges that face the regional channel. The evening of June the 12th, will mark a remarkable day in the evolution of the Middle East’s channel industry as we honour some of the most promising organisations and inspirational people that have made this industry what it is today.

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In its third year running, the event will look to outdo the success of last year’s Conference and Awards that gathered an audience of 450 strong representing some of the most prominent organisations from across the regional channel community.

True to this promise, the team at Reseller Middle East has already received an overwhelming number of nominations across all its 26 categories, with the category for Best Partner Excellence Programmes remaining the most popular across both the vendor and distributor spaces. To keep the excitement going, this year witnesses the creation of some brand new categories such as ‘Woman Executive of the Year’ and ‘Partner Champion of the Year’.

Suffice to say, this will be a night to remember.

Of course, none of this would be possible without our honorary judging panel who have been handed over the task of going through these nominations, each and every one of them equally deserving to arrive at the much anticipated winners of the Reseller Middle East Partner Excellence Awards 2012.

We’d like to take this opportunity to thank our panel of judges:

IVAN KRAEMER Ivan Kraemer currently works at Potential LLC FZE in Dubai where he focuses his elaborate industry experience spanning over 25 years in the Middle East and Africa region to support business and entrepreneurs in their bid to achieve performance growth. Having worked across both the vendor and value added distribution spaces in the capacity of an employee and an entrepreneur, Ivan is no stranger to the secrets of this industry. Ivan holds a Degree in Electrical Engineering in addition to a Diploma in Business Management and Administration and a Diploma in Marketing.

PHILIP HUGHES Philip Hughes is widely recognised as a leading expert on route to market and channel strategies within the Middle East, and is a regular presenter at networking events and conferences here and in Europe. Since October 2007, Philip has been

operating as a consultant helping a number of local and UK based Companies plan local Middle East start-up Operations,, and as an advisor on IT Channel Issues in the region. In 2008 he helped set up Akhdar FZCo, the region’s first truly Compliant Asset Management and Recycling Business and has recently been appointed managing director - GCC Region of Sims Recycling Solutions FZE, (a leading IT recycling organisation).

AMER KHREINO Amer Khreino is the founder and managing director of Avenues FZCO with over 17 years in leadership, management and business development roles in the channel. In his current role, Amer focuses his expertise to offer strategic, financial and operational consulting services to the distribution and channel community as well as to global providers who are expanding their service offerings in the region. He currently lives in the UAE with his family and has a Degree in Engineering and executive education in high impact leadership.

SAMER KARAWI Samer Karawi is a managing partner at Galal & Karawi (G&K) Consulting where he provides American and European ICT companies with business development services in the Middle East. Since the firm’s inception in 2008, Karawi has delivered multiple consulting and training engagements on business and channel development, retail business enablement, social media strategies, creativity and innovation in addition to strategic market re-invention. Prior to this, he has worked for over 25 years in major multinational IT companies in various capacities.

Samer holds a Bachelors Degree in Computer Science and a Masters in Marketing from France.

We look forward to welcoming you all to the Reseller Middle East Partner Excellence Conference and Awards 2012.

For more information on the event, awards categories and registration, please visit www.resellerme.com/awards

THE WINNERS OF THE RESELLER MIDDLE EAST AWARDS 2011: Readers’ Choice, Vendor: Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) Reader’s Choice, Distributor: ASBIS Middle East Best Partner Excellence, Vendor: Microsoft Gulf Best Partner Excellence, Distributor: Redington Gulf Outstanding Executive, IT Channel: Madhav Narayan Outstanding Executive, IT Channel: Lee Reynolds Editor’s Choice: Kaspersky Lab WINNERS, VENDOR Networking Vendor of the Year: Cisco Software & Security Vendor of the Year: Blue Coat Systems Storage Vendor of the Year: Western Digital Peripherals Vendor of the Year: Genius Components Vendor of the Year: Intel Corporation Printing Vendor of the Year: HP IPG Middle East Systems & Hardware Vendor of the Year: Dell Middle East WINNERS, DISTRIBUTOR IT Distributor of the Year: Aptec Holding Components Distributor of the Year: FDC International Networking Distributor of the Year: Westcon Middle East Specialized Distributor of the Year: FVC, Inc Value Added Distributor of the Year: Optimus Technology and Telecommunications Software & Security Distributor: COMPUTERLINKS Peripherals Distributor of the Year: Logicom WINNERS, RESELLER Enterprise Reseller of the Year: help AG SMB & Consumer Reseller of the Year: Accent Office Supplies Trading Super Retailer of the Year: X-cite by Alghanim Electronics Systems Integrator of the Year: Gulf Business Machines

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ANALYSIS SAP

Game on At a recent roundtable, senior representatives from SAP discussed technology for SMEs and the role the channel plays in driving its operations across this booming space.

From L to R: Mazen Jabri, head of chnnels and ecosystem at SAP MENA; M Ravi, VP, business development at Caritor; M Shailesh, head of information systems at Flemingo International; Luis Murguia, SVP ecosystem and channels, at SAP Europe, Middle East and Africa; Nima Mansoor Faqihi, MD, Mansoor Ahmad Mohammad Co LLC and Wassim Hassanieh, managing partner at ProCons-4IT “Large companies carry the headlines while their small and medium sized peers carry the weight of the economy,” said Luis Murguia, SVP ecosystem and channels, at SAP Europe, Middle East and Africa.

Murguia and other senior representatives from SAP recently hosted a round-table where the company affirmed its commitment towards SMEs, saying that these enterprises are central to the UAE’s ability to prosper.

“Information technology is a key pillar for SMEs to become a prime engine of economic growth in the UAE. The advances in businessoriented solutions for mobility, analytics and cloud, are driving the competitiveness of SMEs by empowering business leaders and entrepreneurs with the best in class technology innovations to gain clear insights of the business dynamics in real time,” he said.

At the event, Dhiraj Daryani, research manager, IDC MEA said that according to the IDC IT Managers Forum Survey 2011, while the SME sector’s IT spend is dominated

by investments in hardware, storage and security, entrepreneurs are keen to invest in the latest technology solutions.

“The best way that SMEs are preparing for growth is to have sophisticated business systems in place that allow small companies to operate like big companies, and ultimately compete and win business. But it doesn’t end there. Smart SMEs are also standing out from the crowd by investing in the big trends of 2012: mobility and cloud. In doing so, progressive companies are not only investing in technology innovations but are garnering results in terms of higher revenue expectations to drive impact,” he said.

Daryani added that although the sector is keen to invest, low credit availability for these organisations stifles investments in innovative solutions. “The UAE needs to stimulate the development of existing SMEs, beget new companies through better financial solutions, provide greater access to markets, and facilitate targeted mentoring of youth and entrepreneurs,” said Daryani.

Mazen Jabri, head of channels and ecosystem at SAP MENA said that the company understand the unique needs and channels of the SME segment. “We believe, while SMEs are more customer focused than their larger peers, they prefer a rather intimate working relationship with their technology providers. This is why our focus on this segment is driven solely through our channel partners,” he said.

79% of all SAP SME customers originate from over 3,000 value-added reseller (VAR) channel partners (the goal is to increase that to 100% in the coming years) that provide localisation, regional and industry expertise and support.

SAP’s solutions for SMEs include SAP Business One, a single integrated solution for managing small businesses and SAP Business All-in-One, a customisable and extensible solution for midsize companies with deep industry best practices built in. Currently, there are over 1,100 partner-developed addon solutions for SAP Business One and SAP Business All-in-One, it was reported.

M Ravi, VP, business development for Middle East at Caritor, a member of the web solutions provider Entity Data said that the company has been offering SAP solutions for the last six years. “Working with SAP and catering to the SME segment has helped us achieve approximately 36% growth year on year. The relationship has been lucrative because the team at SAP believes in a mutual growth model where we build go-to-market strategies together and tap into the emerging technology needs to this booming enterprise segment in the region. In addition, the company’s long term commitment to invest in expanding its reach across the entire region through training, awareness building events and more resources on the ground has in turn helped us build a strong business case. Like SAP we too measure our success by our ability to capture new customers,” he said According to Gartner, the global SME market is projected to grow by more than $1 trillion by 2014, with a five-year CAGR of 5.7%. This naturally means big opportunities for vendors and partners offering the latest IT solutions, with Forrester noting that the SME ERP market alone is expected to grow to $31.3 billion by 2014 at a CAGR 6.1%. //

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ANALYSIS Access Data Group

Steady start The AccessData Group recently ventured into the region to cater to the demand for enterprise scale advanced security solutions. The company is now on the lookout for the right channel partners to help expand its reach and leverage the growing demand for these solutions at a significant competitive advantage.

The commoditisation of the Internet has led to the creation of the borderless organisation, one that sources and engages a much larger clientele than was earlier possible. While the opportunities created for organisations by the Internet are no doubt significant, the common utilisation of the Internet for everything from personal banking to online shopping and social networking has created room for e-crimes like identity theft and confidential data breach.

Over the last few years, we have all heard and read about a number of prominent international organisations that have fallen ‘prey’ to both hackers and ‘hacktivists’. These victims not only lost large sums of money but suddenly found themselves dealing with the repercussions of long standing negative publicity. Their customers have been affected too, for instance, on May 2nd 2011; Sony confirmed that over 12,000 credit card numbers had been stolen during the course of the now infamous PSN attack.

In the wake of this explosion of cyber crimes, organisations have realised the very ‘real’ threat posed by cyber criminals and already security is listed as one of the top investment priorities of CIOs across the world.

Noting this increased demand for cyber security and risk mitigation solutions, AccessData Group, a pioneer in digital investigations and litigation support for more than twenty years and the maker of the industry-standard computer forensics technology, FTK, decided to venture into the Middle East.

“Five years ago as a company we made the conscious decision to make

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a significant investment outside of our core area of operations-FTK; which back then represented a commoditised, internationally recognised source of revenue for AccessData. Noticing the need for adaptive enterprise scale security solutions, we decided to focus our technology

Whitburn explains that AccessData doesn’t consider itself a rival to other security vendors instead the company’s technology complements those of other vendors. “A lot of the technology out there is signature based blocking technology, our technology then complements an end

“Traditionally, we invested in a very small number of technology partners because the forensics space was very niche and focused almost entirely on the law enforcement vertical. However, our operations in this region need to be driven by a larger channel primarily because the corporate sector in the Middle East demands the in house capability to conduct their own forensic investigations without having to resort to a third party or divulge information to law enforcement.” expertise on creating intelligent toolsets and incident response technology. We then began establishing our reach across the international markets by identifying key regions where we thought the demand for advanced security solutions was growing.

Naturally, the maturing markets of the Middle East represented a huge opportunity for us, one that was young and rich in terms of IT investment patterns,” says Simon Whitburn, vice president of international sales at AccessData.

The company set up a head office in Dubai, UAE in 2010 and appointed Geoff Brooks, regional sales manager for AccessData’s emerging operations in the Middle East, Africa and India.

user’s existing security environment by provisioning instant response capabilities to mitigate the risks or losses associated with data breach,” he says.

Brown adds, “While the traditional signature based technology has a place in layered security systems it represents only one layer because these solutions are programmed to track and block malware or threats with a pre identified signature. CERT, the instant response programme is the kind of technology that is programmed to look out for adaptive signatures or a variety of potential threat codes, making it a lot more efficient at detecting and blocking APTs.” “The markets of Saudi Arabia, UAE and Qatar represent key growth segments

Simon Whitburn, vice president of international sales at AccessData

across the GCC region. Much like Europe, a huge part of the demand for AccessData’s technology comes from organisations key to national infrastructure such as government, telecommunications, energy, utilities and banking and finance. We’ve had a prominent banking customer come to us to and say that they’ve lost a huge chunk of money without a trace. This client had already invested in the latest technology as per their information security policy, clearly indicating that there are threats out there that don’t even raise the regular alarm bells and therefore are very hard to detect, let alone block. This realisation is what has organisations in the region calling on a forensic company like AccessData to pick out the ‘needle from the stack of needles’, to identify how the breach occurred and where the money went. We can help organisations deploy real time identification technology that can help them mitigate the risk associated with network breaches,” Brown says.

According to Whitburn in 2010 the company reported modest revenues of $150,000 from its operations in the region.

“In a year’s time our revenue grew to $2 million and we’re expecting to double this number by the end of 2012,” he adds.

Although the demand for the company’s services is quickly growing, both Brown and Whitburn say that AccessData is yet limited in its reach and is therefore actively trying to build a regional channel.

“At the moment we are pushing towards a two tier distribution model, we really feel like we have enough demand to warrant such a model given the technology opportunity and investment patterns in the region. Traditionally, we invested in a very small number of technology partners because the forensics space was very niche and focused almost entirely on the law enforcement vertical. However, our operations in this region need to be driven by a larger channel primarily because the corporate sector in the Middle East demands the in house capability to conduct their own forensic investigations without having to resort to a third party or divulge information to law enforcement. In order for us to deliver this capability across a larger corporate segment in Oman, Bahrain, Kuwait, East Africa and India we need to develop and skill the channel,” states Brown.

According to Brown, the company’s search for channel partners is hindered by the availability of skilled personnel in the region.

“We do get plenty of inbound enquiries about partnerships but actually finding the organisations that are prepared to invest in the right skills is a challenge. In addition, the attrition rates in the region is another considerable challenge, with many instances where we have invested time and resources in training only to find that these people have moved on to other organisations and different roles,” he says.

The right partners, Whitburn adds are organisations with some kind of security related background and vertical expertise especially across banking and finance, telecommunications and the government sectors. “We believe that these are the essentials, once we’ve established a long term partnership, we can then plug in the gaps through training and other support initiatives,” he adds.

The company has invested in the AccessData Certified Examiner (ACE) programme that is associated with education and technical training focused on the company’s core forensic technology or

FTK. Once partners have achieved this certification they can then go on to leverage AccessData’s ‘Avatar’ programme to equip them with the skills necessary to provision pre sales, proof of concept and technical support associated with the brand’s advanced security solutions and products.

Partners can also access AccessData’s Learning Management System (LMS) through the partner portal. “LMS takes all our courses and modulises them. While some modules are focused on the benefits of the technology, there are others associated with deployment and processing. LMS gives partners the ability to acquire the skills or even refresh their existing knowledge base in their own time,” he explains.

“We are also working on delivering training around our technical account managementnservices to provision partners with the skills necessary for adept service delivery. For instance, when we bring on a customer, we assign them a technical account manager from AccessData to manage the deployment and enable thorough support capability. The training will then enable partners to do the same without us having to intervene, this also represents a key value add that partners can offer their clients,” says Brown.

“We have to be very selective about who we bring on board and since this is a new space it takes some more education for resellers to understand where the opportunities lie and how they can differentiate themselves to earn a competitive edge and significant business benefit,” he adds.

Whitburn says that the company prefers to work with the larger system integrators and hardware vendors in the region. “Once we have convinced them of the opportunity, they’re keen to wrap their services around our solutions. Hardware vendors can now combine their hardware, storage capabilities and processing power with our software to offer customers a competitive efficient security solution. For the last six months, we’ve focused our energies on aligning ourselves with organisations that have these value add capabilities and we’ve successfully signed on approximately six key partners in the region, a number we hope to increase very quickly,” he concludes. //

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ANALYSIS Financing challenges

Money matters Booming as the channel industry is, resellers are often hindered in their ability to expand operations due to the limited availability of financing options in the region. We find out how the situation can be tackled.

One of the key challenges faced by resellers and IT start ups is the low credit availability and limited financing options. While many view the Middle East as a haven for SMEs and start ups, this perception is far from truth.

Experts believe that this apprehension to offer financing options to SMEs roots down to the perceptions of SMEs and start ups in the eyes of banking and finance institutions in the Middle East.

According to Vikram Venkataraman, director at Salvus Strategic Advisors, banks view these organisations as being high risk borrowers due to the following: Concentrated high risk - Traditionally, these organisations focus on a niche product segment or a select group of buyers.

While this may seem like a positive to the organisation in question, the bank looks at this element from a sustainability point of view, in that the risk managers often ask the question, “how would the business sustain its growth and its ability to repay the loan if competition within the product segment increases or if it loses out on its primary buyers?”

Key man risk - A majority of these organisations run on the qualifications and abilities of one key individual who assumes a number of roles from being founder and MD to sales and marketing. The question then arises on the organisation’s ability to sustain performance in a situation where this key individual is unable to perform or in the case of his or her long term absence.

Limited fall back options - The fact that these enterprises often depend on a key individual and focus on niche products and a select group of buyers mean they don’t have much to hedge the risk associated with the

loss of any one of the previously mentioned elements.

Poor financial management - An unfortunate minority of SMEs and start ups actually invest in maintaining a transparent record of their accounts even fewer of these organisations understand the difference between financing and accounting. Most even fail to realise the importance of using proper accounting software to maintain records. This is why balance sheet lending is practically impossible.

Skip risk - Perhaps what makes the situation worse is the ability to exit the country without any hassles especially in the case of an organisation that has no tangible assets as is the case with most IT services or consulting companies.

According to him, the scenario is a lot more bleak for first time borrowers from mature companies because banks hesitate to lend to enterprises or individuals without a previous track record.

This is why, Venkataraman says that SMEs and start ups need to manage their accounts and finance records with a long term vision.

“Begin with the assumption that in a few years time you will need to borrow whether it’s for expansion or reinvestment. Try and maintain clean accounts (less than four bounced cheques), if you can’t employ an in house accountant, outsource the task. Ensure that you use good accounting software and do not maintain your records on an Excel file. Get your accounts audited by a bank empanelled auditor (ask the bank you are most likely to approach for a loan to recommend good audit firms). Most importantly, open operating accounts with atleast two ‘right’ banks, never put all your eggs in one basket,” he says.

The ‘right’ banks Venkataraman believes are those that you know are most likely to lend, either with a strong background of operations in the SME and start up segment or one referred to you through a peer or colleague (who may have acquired a loan from the bank) In addition to these recommendations, he advises that entrepreneurs and business

“The ‘right’ banks are those that you know are most likely to lend, either with a strong background of operations in the SME and start up segment or one referred to you through a peer or colleague.”

All of the above in addition to the inability to articulate their financial needs results in their loan applications being rejected, he says.

Specific to the IT hardware and service companies in the region, banks believe the low barriers to entry associated with this industry together with the lack of exclusivity associated with distribution partnerships makes these businesses a risky deal. In addition, technology is a field with a very high obsolescence rate which makes business even more volatile.

owners build a good reputation with their customers and vendor partners for the bank is always more keen to lend when they have a few reputable and positive testimonials to turn to.

He concludes that the situation isn’t all bleak, more banks are venturing into the SME segment and some are even to begin focusing on the small and micro business segments. As is the case with all verticals, as competition within this space grows, Venkataraman expects the scenario to ease up for IT resellers and start ups. //

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ANALYSIS Brocade

Channelled beginnings Recently appointed territory channel manager at Brocade, Khaled Kamel tells us about the evolution of the channel and what he brings to the plate in his new role.

We have come a long way from the time when IT vendors were yet to establish a presence in the region. Back then, vendors in more cases than not, were likely to establish an exclusive distribution agreement with just one channel partner.

Even in cases where the vendor was approached by a customer, the vendor would then route and service this query through that very channel partner. These relationships were rock solid, symbiotic and underpinned by the loyalty that both parties exhibited towards each other,” says Khaled Kamel, newly appointed, territory channel manager at Brocade.

Suffice to say, the situation changed, both as vendors began venturing into the Middle East and governments across the region began lowering the regulations surrounding the establishment of partnerships for IT distribution. “In the past, most vendors signed agreements with the larger systems integrators or organisations that initially started off as systems integrators. Every request for the distribution of the vendors’ products or solutions was routed through these organisations. As more vendors began establishing a base in the region and the government began encouraging the creation of more partnerships to boost the economic situation of the region, we began witnessing the transition from ‘exclusive’ relationships to multiple ‘exclusive’ relationships between vendors and distributors, systems integrators and resellers,” he says.

While all this contributed to the growth of an IT trade hub in the Middle East it also created immense competition between the distribution and reseller space. “In turn, it was this sudden explosion in competition that led resellers to lay considerable emphasis on the customer. Suddenly it

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wasn’t about what vendor they were loyal to or what products or solutions made their existing brand portfolio, instead it was all about selling the solutions that the customers demanded,” says Kamel.

It this is understanding of the evolution of the regional channel community and the partnerships entailed there in that Kamel brings with him to Brocade.

Today, Kamel says he finds very few partners who speak the language of

people without whom there is no way you can survive,” he explains.

This is why finding the right partners is a challenge, Kamel believes.

He explains, “The right partners should appreciate they service they are providing.

They must have the kind of people who are qualified and believe in the service they provide or need to the customer. Most importantly, partners need to understand and believe in the value proposition they

“People need to understand that there is a value for know-how and value for your time especially an arena as specialised as network that is unlike the commodity, volume or box selling market. The value market is very different and if you don’t project this difference in value to your customer, you lose out on the opportunity to make the margin and grow. If you don’t have the margins you can’t afford to hire the right people without whom there is no way you can survive.” loyalty. “While some are on the lookout for opportunistic business models pushing only the product’s of vendors who support them, others are aggressively lowering prices. What they don’t realise is that in the long run; this hinders their ability to survive.

People need to understand that there is a value for know-how and value for your time especially an arena as specialised as network that is unlike the commodity, volume or box selling market. The value market is very different and if you don’t project this difference in value to your customer, you lose out on the opportunity to make the margin and grow. If you don’t have the margins you can’t afford to hire the right

offer the customer. I still believe, sitting in front of the customer, your job is to highlight the value add your product brings to the customer’s enterprise. Although listening to the customer is a central to success, it is not the only thing, customers are knowledgeable, and there has been an evolution there too. They are more informed, more aware of the options out there, they are also faced with more options and that is precisely why educating them on the difference between the value that one solution brings in comparison to another is key to influencing their decisions. There is nothing wrong with sitting there and telling the customer that your products are not

Khaled Kamel, territory channel manager at Brocade

suited to them, because while you may lose an opportunity you may gain their trust and this always bodes well in the long run.”

Kamel describes Brocade’s channel strategy as a ‘focus’ strategy.

“We’ve divided our operations across what we term the ‘high touch’ and ‘low touch’ markets. While the former represents the key segments of KSA, UAE, Kuwait, Qatar and Egypt where we maintain in country operations, the latter represents all those countries or regions where we don’t have a physical presence such as the countries in North Africa, Bahrain, Oman, Pakistan, Lebanon, Jordan and Iraq,” he says.

The company runs operations in the ‘low touch’ markets through distributors. “That is why we look for distributors who speak the same language, who know what is needed and know the programmes well enough to be able to promote them to the partners on our behalf. From time to time we call on these partners for training and orientation programmes but we are very confident of our distributors’ capabilities to manage these markets and the partners in them,” Kamel adds.

On the other than in the ‘high touch’ markets, the company has selected a few key partners operating in these markets who they manage with minimum involvement from distributors. “Distributors are involved only when needed for instance in a situation

requiring logistics or in the case of invoicing (we never do direct invoicing, except in the case of direct value added reseller DVARs).

We do everything ourselves including visiting customers and interacting with these resellers on a daily basis,” he says.

Kamel says that in addition to Saudi Arabia and Qatar, the company’s operations in Egypt have grown considerably over the last two years. “We’ve managed to sign a few good deals despite the recent turmoil associated with the Arab Spring and the presidential elections. This is because we consciously decided to continue investing in the region, signing on more resources on the ground and actively engaged with end users, unlike others who limit or even cut back on their operations in the region especially in the arena of credit availability,” he adds.

In addition to the continuous support and technical assistance that the company offers its partner, Brocade has also recently launched the Channel Credit Card initiative in the Middle East region. “Launched in the Middle East in late March this year, the Brocade Channel Credit Card is a reward programme for the salesperson that closes the sale with the end user. The partner registers the opportunity on our system and automatically seals this opportunity as his or her own, because the registration is system managed it cannot be tampered with. When

they register the opportunity, it automatically creates a Brocade credit card for the sales person and every time they make a sale they are rewarded with a certain amount of US dollars on the card depending on the product value. This card can be used just like a regular credit card,” states Kamel.

The company also offers a range of training options from computer based training, virtual classrooms and instructor led training sessions. In addition, Brocade has also established a briefing centre in UK where partners can take their customers for a simulated tour of their IT environment.

“They can visualise the benefits associated with the deployment and experience the technology first hand. We contribute to the cost of bringing the customer to the briefing centre to further support our partners,” Kamel says.

He adds that while he would never say no to a new partner, he needs to be convinced of the opportunity lying ahead of both parties involved. “We don’t want partnerships that are focused on just one order, we would much rather establish partnerships that are lucrative in the long run.

We want to be able to develop that trust and invest in knowledge transfer, this alone with enable mutual growth and business benefit for both us and the partner,” he explains.

Kamel says that the channel community needs to change its mindset from one that focuses on chasing an opportunity to one that looks to create opportunities.

He believes that virtualisation and cloud computing are two young and maturing opportunities open to the channel. “The channel needs to begin studying the evident gaps in processes and technology, they need to work on filling these gaps to earn themselves a significant competitive edge and continue growing. This is what strong partnerships can give them. Brocade is the kind of vendor who will sit down with them, understand their capabilities and challenges and help them visualise the opportunities that lie ahead of them and help them plug in the resources they need to actually realise the value from emerging technology trends. I believe that a partner who hasn’t interacted with Brocade is at a significant risk of losing out on a key growth opportunity” he concludes. //

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COVER FEATURE Group IT Executives

The role of a leader is very similar to that of captain of a ship. Not only does he or she steer the organisation in the right direction, they are the people who breed the culture within the organisation. While some choose to be sticklers to detail, others choose to encourage a happy and creative environment that allows room for mistakes and therefore learning. It is their ability to hone this culture that ultimately has the employees looking up to them. They lend their vision to the organisation and then ensure that the company stays on the right track.

While the organisation is all about its people, it is the leader who ensures his people are motivated and passionate about what they do.

Perhaps this is why, a true leader is often remembered even long after the organisation he led is forgotten.

In a bid to explore the essentials of successful group executive, we speak to some of the leaders behind the most prominent IT distributors in the region. These are the titans....

COVER FEATURE Group IT Executives

Marissa Safe, VP and COO at FDC International “Over the years I realised I knew only how to sell, I didn’t know how to manage people. This is the training I acquired through regular meetings with vendors and business associates. I learnt that people come with different personalities and expectations; I learnt to listen and effectively communicate what I could offer. These I believe are the essentials that make a good group executive”

Marissa Safe, COO and VP at FDC International came to the Middle East from the United States over 15 years ago and set up a small company together with her husband, as resellers of memory products and CPUs. At the time, Safe says the market was dominated by fake memory products and CPUs. “We took the time then to set down a strategy that focused on educating people about the difference between original products and the fakes that were selling in the market. Our company motto said ‘only originals. It was a few years before we saw perceptions change and people realise the value behind paying for an original.

Over the years, the company grew; we saw greater demand and developed strong relationships with vendors across the components space. By this time, we also understood the market and its people a whole lot better and decided it was time to move into the distribution space,” she says Coming from an engineering background, Safe enjoyed and understood technology. However, over the years, she began to realise that her true passion was selling technology. “I didn’t just want to sit in the office, designing or managing a system, I enjoyed interacting with people,” she says.

Not one to be deterred from her passion, Safe delved into sales with an unrelenting spirit. “I faced the challenges any young woman would face. Often people in a male dominated industry do not trust the capabilities or the words of a woman. A task, I learned can only be tackled through one’s behaviour. I always kept the company’s capabilities and resources in mind when meeting a customer and therefore never promised what we couldn’t deliver. This helped change perceptions,” she says.

Safe has instilled a go-getter nature within the company’s culture, stressing on performance and focusing on delivery. “I believe that if you want to do something, you will do it. Don’t look for excuses, look for opportunities. When we first came to Dubai, it was the right place and the right time. It was my luck that I chose to enter the

market at a time when the infrastructure and economy were ready for growth. I have learnt from my experience that if you don’t grab an opportunity early on in the game, it will pass you by,” she adds.

Safe says that the company’s strategy is the key to its success. “At FDC, we are constantly on the lookout for emerging opportunities. We have often been the ones to enter untapped markets such as Libya and Iraq, we have learnt to balance our operations across the diverse regions we operate to offset any unforeseen political or economic changes,” Safe explains.

She adds that the ability to communicate and share information is central to the organisation’s strategy. “We have established trust based relationships with all our resellers, who share valuable information about the markets we operate across.

They help us understand that while there lies a lot of similarity between our regional operations, there are some minor yet critical differences in customer demands and market ethics. For instance, while Saudi Arabia prefers longer payment terms, Jordan wants exclusive partnerships and while Saudi Arabia is showing great demand for mobility solutions, Egypt is a strong components market. In turn, we share this information with our vendors, helping them scale their operations to be more successful across the diverse markets,” says Safe.

According to Safe, it is this strategy alone that has helped the company grow from marginal revenues to over USD 450 million today.

When hiring people, Safe looks for their commitment and passion for getting things done, which is critical to her company. “I see people around the world go hungry and understand the value of work, and then I see people in this region being served on a silver platter, with unrealistically high incomes but who lack the work ethic and passion or commitment for their jobs, I look at them as excess baggage,” she says.

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COVER FEATURE Group IT Executives

Meera Kaul, managing director, Optimus Technology and Telecommunications “The channel is a bundle of diversity.

That aspect of the channel is perhaps the most intriguing aspect of our daily lives. Understanding diversity, perceptions, motivations and working our way through this huge variable make working with a huge regional channel base one of the most enjoyable aspects of our engagement model”

Meera Kaul,an attorney by education began her journey in the regional channel industry roughly 15 years ago with ventures like Learning Zone, Momenta and finally Optimus Technology and Telecommunications.

Kaul set up Optimus in 2008, with the objective of filling the evident gaps in the regional channel market. “My vision from the start was for Optimus to be a successful value added distribution business, and we built it out from scratch by introducing several value-added services, which has helped us stand out from other distributors in the region,” she says. Kaul believes the company’s achievements marked the beginning of a shift across the larger industry.

“One of the first things I noticed was the largely trading mentality that existed across the regional distribution space, so I set up Optimus Technology and Telecommunications with one aim in mind- to fill the value gaps in the channel, from the very top of the channel. Today, I believe this is Optimus’s biggest achievement. It was the front runner focused on delivering value in the channel from world class technology products and solutions to technical expertise and capacity building,” she says.

Kaul believes that traditionally the role of a group executive was aligned to monitor and execute compliance of business strategies and group commitments.

However, over the last few years the shift has been towards strategising and executing technology innovation. “The executive level officials now need to make innovative decisions that shift from efficiency measures to innovation initiatives that will deliver results. Companies have been historically run to measure success by revenue and profit, whereas the new paradigm of success recognises companies to be measured on their creative ability to innovate all aspects of a corporation’s functions and service levels across the business execution. The role of the executives has been redefined to be more visionary and innovative than just as a functional revenue driven leader,” she states.

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This is why, she adds, a successful group executive is a creative risk taker, who follows a tangible thought process. He or she is one who is socially connected and well-informed of market dynamics. Most importantly, Kaul says they are pragmatic motivators, who never shy of a challenge and are always loyal to the company and its many stakeholders.

Kaul adds that a group executive must understand the role the organisation plays in the larger scheme of things. “A successful IT distribution company is a supply chain management conduit between the vendor and its channel. A successful IT value distribution company is a partner to both the vendor and its channel. Apart from fulfilling the traditional roles; the USP for a value player is to promote a deeper multivendor solutions portfolio of its vendors to its partners, to technically support these sales and to cover the gaps in skills required to sell, implement and support these technologies,” she says.

Kaul says it is the ability to bring learning and innovation together that she perhaps enjoys the most.

“I enjoyed bringing in innovation to the value added distribution model by rolling out business support to Optimus’ partner network. For any business to do well, we need the right people in place and it was a tough task putting together a strong team of technically qualified professionals with the skills, knowledge and expertise in the IT domain,” she says.

“As a mentor, I always look to grow careers of individuals who have positive attributes, a ‘can-do’ attitude and a focused goal driven acumen. I consider these important parameters for further growth. I am of the opinion that nothing is impossible if an individual can put his or her sincere efforts to achieve the goals and I have immense respect for people who know what they want and work backwards with a focus to achieve them. These are the people who have the capability to be leaders,” she concludes.

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COVER FEATURE Group IT Executives

Ajay Singh Chauhan, CEO at Spectrum Group “A group executive needs to be a well read and versatile individual. He or she must possess strong business acumen in addition to a keen financial instinct. IT is knowledge led business and as group executive within an IT company we often have to assume the role of a mentor who offers guidance and motivates those around him to constantly strive for perfection”

“A journey of over 20 years in the IT Industry has been the foundation for my channel experience. The experience of working with various vendors and handling variety of job functions has helped me understand the details of the channel across the MENA and APAC regions. This in turn has enabled me to retain the existing resellers, while securing new players. The journey has been very challenging, but rewarding and motivating,” says Ajay Singh Chauhan, CEO, Spectrum group.

With a degree in Engineering from IIT, Mumbai, India, Chauhan worked in a variety of roles at some prominent organisations including Mindware and Jeraisy Computers and Communications Services prior to joining Spectrum Group. Having acquired the necessary experience, Chauhan was soon promoted within the ranks at the company and is today the man behind the organisation’s width and breadth of operations.

“The role of a group executive has become multifunctional. He or she has to be conversant in all fields of knowledge and can no longer focus on sales or marketing. A group executive should have a keen eye and ear on the evolving business environment, especially when it comes to understanding the market, economic scenarios and financial management. Most importantly, he must possess good interpersonal skills essential for HR management as well as for building reliable relationships with partners and clients,” he says.

Chauhan believes that developing a company’s vertical strengths is absolutely critical to success, a concept that underpins the Spectrum Group’s larger business strategy. “One of our fundamental factors is to develop vertical strengths and be domain focused. Each vertical is backed by a strong team of pre-sales consultants to offer real value addition to the respective vertical. Expanding geographically takes us closer to our customers and helps us understand and serve them much better,” Chauhan adds.

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He says that while he does enjoy engaging with the channel and equipping them with the necessary skills to sustain mutual benefit, working in a competitive yet financially strained industry can be quite challenging.

“Some of the aspects I find most challenging include the ability to maximize the usage of available databases, in addition to which project estimation time, fund requirements and availability of cash-flow and fund management is a huge challenge every day. Managing unforeseen time lags in project completion and ensuring we have taken the necessary steps to counter any is probably even harder. All these elements are crucial to success and cannot be overlooked, making the task even trickier,” he says.

“Develop a sound knowledge of the business and the different products and solutions available in the market today. Understand the markets, notice untapped opportunities and develop the right strategy. Develop your analytical and forecasting capabilities and most importantly, enhance your finance knowledge for nothing is more important than cash flow management and profitability.

Focus on nurturing your employees and partners to deliver what they promise the customer, for while that will ensure stable returns it will also give you the resources needed to innovate, hire qualified personnel and eventually expand operations. Remember all the aspects of the business are interconnected and although the task may seem daunting, it isn’t impossible,” he says.

According to Chauhan, a successful IT distribution company is one that focuses not just on its product portfolio but also on its ability to enhance value. He explains, “The market is no longer about selling a box, today the customers want a solution and therefore an organization needs to invest in enhancing the skillsets of resellers as well as employees so that they may understand the need for the solution and deliver a superior experience.”

Dr. Amir Ali Baghdadi, CEO and president, Aptec Group “People are the greatest asset and a great source of knowledge, so I learn to listen and put my trust in people and their skills. I learnt to make calculated risks without which you cannot succeed. One can never stop learning, so I never stop studying. I also learnt that if you do not like what you do, then change and sometimes you have to follow your heart”

Dr. Amir Ali Baghdadi graduated from Cairo University with a major in Electronics and Communications, following which he enrolled at the Imperial College, London University to pursue a Masters and PhD in Computer Science. “During this period, I also worked for the University as a research fellow, studying automating petrology and mineralogy test equipment. I also worked as a consultant to the Common Wealth Science Council and UNDP on alternative energy projects,” he says.

Dr. Baghdadi founded Aptec when he was still at University. Thirty two years later, Aptec Distribution has sales offices in the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkey and Lebanon in addition to its 10 support offices. The distributor carries a sizeable vendor portfolio and maintains a well balanced business model across software, hardware and networking technology segments.

“The ability to recognise changing market dynamics together with the ability to adapt to this change has kept us going for the last 32 years. These are the keys to survival,” he proudly states.

The switch from an academic environment was exciting, he says and all the more so because while he got to apply his acquired knowledge, he acquired new skills and industry expertise ‘on the job’. “Back then, the IT business allowed just enough room to be able to make mistakes, learn from them and still make money,” Dr.Baghdadi says.

He also set up other businesses in the areas of software development, solar technology as well as media and aviation technology.

In the meantime, Aptec Distribution is touching almost $500 million in annual revenue and has maintained a healthy growth rate of 14% over the last three years.

“In my opinion, the strength of the group executive is in the strength of his team. The CEO may have the ability to get down to details, but it is more important to provide guidance, vision and opportunities for his leadership team,” Dr. Baghdadi states.

He believes that vision, the ability to plan and empower, leadership skills and market knowledge are essential for success. “A group CEO is one who has all these skills and can still recognise his own weaknesses and most importantly, has the ability to recognise good talent,” he says.

Dr. Baghdadi believes, “Every element in the company structure is important. IT distribution companies have to be significantly more efficient and sharper than their vendors in order to be viable. The barrier to entry today is quite high as the role of the distributor is now much larger than before and therefore it is important to always remember that every part and every person counts.”

Although the biggest challenge is finding enough time in the day to fulfil his many responsibilities, Dr.Baghdadi values his role at Aptec because it gives him an opportunity to introduce the latest smart technologies. In fact, in recent years, the company has revised its business strategy from a volume based broadline approach to a value added distributor’s role.

Being well read and extensively educated, Dr.Baghdadi places immense importance on training and skills enhancement which is considered an important channel deliverable at Aptec.

He prides himself on his ability to stay calm in the face of any storm and lists patience as his core competency. “I don’t believe in running too fast. Instead I prefer steady and consistent growth. I believe it is much more important to develop our people, enable our channel partners, and work out short term objectives in a bid to achieve long term growth.

This approach helps manage our working capital effectively, invest in the growth of our people while simultaneously expanding our reach across the region,” he says.

True to its strategy, the distributor has invested in independent managed services in addition to logistics support operations. It has also expanded operations across the CIS countries and is exploring opportunities for operation in the North Africa market.

His advice to young professionals aiming to one day be group executives is, “Come work with Aptec, but remember it’s no easy task.”

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COVER FEATURE Group IT Executives

Aloysius Fernandes, president, IT Volume, MEA at Redington Gulf “Envision your career to be the best in the world .Focus on impact and not on income. Move out of your comfort zone. Be the most ethical person you know and do not settle for anything less than excellence”

“I believe that the basic core of leading the executive teams in consistence with the strategy and commercial objectives of the board and the stakeholders remains unchanged. There is more thrust on creating a culture which is participatory, accountable, transparent, responsive and equitable. It is less about command and control and more about connect and create,” says Aloysius Fernandes, president, IT Volume, Middle East and Africa at Redington Gulf.

With over 22 years of experience in the channel operating across a variety of sales, procurement, business management and human resource management roles, Fernandes is now responsible for leading the distributor’s volume distribution operations across Middle East and Africa. In his role, he is also responsible for the organisation’s core functions such as CRM, logistics, IT and HR and admin to support the next wave of growth.

Prior to joining Redington Gulf, Fernandes was part of senior management at a global IT distributor where he led a merger and also set up new markets across India and the larger subcontinent.

Fernandes believes that today there exists a clear shift from an environment of internal focus to one that is focused on customers. “The culture of innovation to provide these customers greater value underpins an organisation’s ability to succeed in the long run,” he says.

When asked about the essentials behind establishing a successful distribution business, Fernandes cites the example of Redington Gulf. He describes the organisation as being a supply chain services company whose entire offering comprises four blocks including distribution, logistics and warehouse services, financial services and post-sales support services.

“Our success is dictated by the fact that we have situated ourselves at arm’s-length of demand. This implies local stocking, local currency transactions, inducting local talent, developing local skills, offering local credit and providing post sales services locally to our channel partners. This approach allows us to improve our service level deliverables across each of our areas of operations,” Fernandes explains.

True to his statement, the company operates across 14 markets including the larger Middle East region, Bahrain, Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Morocco and Libya.

Redington Gulf reported revenue of $1.6 billion, the largest reported by any channel player in the region. Fernandes says that company owes its success to its team. “We have been crafting and building our team. We have consciously invested in nurturing the local talent across our offices and warehouses as well as enhancing the skills of our partners. At present, we are exploring innovative value added solutions in the supply chain services space, which would help us provide an enhanced experience to our partners,” Fernandes says.

Identifying untapped markets with great potential together with the constant strive for innovation across the supply chain services space is central to the company’s strategy for growth.

Fernandes says that because Redington addresses a number of markets across Middle East and Africa, each unique in its own way, “striving to perfect the supply chain for each country across the varied product categories” is perhaps the biggest challenge.

He says that having been in the supply chain business right from the inception of his career, his well rounded experience and knowledge of the market are his core competencies. His experience has taught him the importance of relationship building and helps him offer core deliverables in a manner that measures up to the company’s customers while meeting vendor expectations, a task many find tricky.

“Diverse technological expertise, solution based competencies and end user relationships is the value our channel fraternity brings to the table and makes our collaboration very exciting and rewarding. We along with our channel partners can service, virtually any end-user segment of the market across Middle East and Africa. It is very fulfilling that we, as their supply chain partners, can actively help them harness their entrepreneurial skills to provide innovative solutions to their end customers,” Fernandes adds.

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COVER FEATURE Group IT Executives

Ashish Panjabi, COO, Jacky’s Group “Retail is about detail. The small details are what ultimately make the difference between a good retailer and a better retailer”

If you’ve ever gone shopping for electronics, you already know Jacky’s Electronics, a premium electronics retailer in the region.

Ashish Panjabi, COO at Jacky’s Group took over the reins in the family-run business in 2004. “I initially was involved in the finance side of the business; a few months later I got involved on the e-business side of things and in 2000, launched the first e-commerce electronics website in the UAE. Over the years, I have managed various divisions within the company including the Mail Order Division, Home Appliance Distribution Division, Institutional Sales, Office Automation Division, a Photographic Studio, and an audio-video system integration company that we were part owners of,” he says.

Today, Panjabi is primarily responsible for the group’s digital printing division, visitor management solutions division and retail division.

Contrary to his growth in this industry, Panjabi actually started off his career as a financial analyst for a graphic arts equipment manufacturer and was based at the company’s Asia-Pacific headquarters in Hong Kong.

“I love the power of information. It is a culture I try to instill into anyone I meet and this is also why I love the power of social media. There is so much knowledge to be gained and shared with people who you wouldn’t otherwise know or even meet. So when you hear a great story about someone else’s experiences, it motivates me to aim higher,” he says.

Panjabi adds that his ability to look at the ‘bigger picture’ without complicating the present is a great asset. “There are certain fundamentals that are timeless. They may be packaged in different ways and it is easy to lose sight of the fact that if the fundamentals aren’t there, it isn’t going to fly. It’s as simple as that and keeping things simple has always been somewhat of a strength,” Panjabi adds.

Part of this realism has rubbed off on the company; Panjabi says they set down realistic growth strategies and expectations. “Expecting growth rates of 30%, 40%

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or 100% like we heard about a few years ago isn’t sustainable. Choosing a respectable growth rate, whether it be 5%, 10% or 15% is better, you can work to grow year on year instead of growing exponentially one year and crashing the next.

If there is one lesson that many of us learned during the recession, it was learning to adjust our expectations to a sustainable level,” Panjabi states.

He adds that he has been fortunate in his role as a COO because his team has willingly accepted his management style. “I’ve always had a team that’s been open-minded enough to want to do things differently. Instead of being the bottleneck, I’ve tried to ensure that as much responsibility gets delegated down the line.

I believe only when the team feels they own a process, will they put their heart into ensuring they succeed at it. My team is well aware that while I may not breathe down their necks, I do set high standards and am firm in my actions if they’re not met,” Panjabi explains.

He firmly believes that there is only so much one person can do and for many group executives, the challenge comes in developing and nurturing the right set of people. He says, “While the primary role of the group executive is to set the strategy in place and ensure it is executed, it is important to ensure it is followed up on. Too many executives have removed themselves too far from their business and you need to learn to be humble enough to get on the floor and see firsthand what is happening.”

“It is important to be able to listen and be open to criticism. It is equally important to hear out suggestions and keep up with the latest trends, for that is our challenge, to identify the next big trend early enough. This is how you see the bigger picture. Admit when you’re wrong for being defensive doesn’t help.

Acknowledging a situation, addressing it and correcting it gets you far more respect,” Panjabi concludes.

Cesare Cardone, CEO, Gulf Business Machines (GBM) “Even though it is always difficult to judge yourself, if I look back I have realized the importance of taking risks and implementing what I felt were the best strategies according to our environment. I have been exposed to great ideas that I have had to turn down simply knowing that they wouldn’t work for the region. As a CEO, you realize that making mistakes is inevitable”

“Companies across the GCC have grown enormously over the years. Each company has to go through the process of fixing the inevitable inefficiencies built up during their time of growth and focus on building an efficient corporation.

It is important to maintain this focus, and always be on the lookout for areas a company can enhance. We are facing different market conditions today and it is vital to make sure we become more efficient in order to make it work,” says Cesare Cardone, CEO at Gulf Business Machines (GBM).

He continues, “When GBM was first formed, it functioned in a very different environment to what we experience today. The differences do not begin or end with the sophistication of technology at the time. We now work in an industry, which caters to increasingly granular needs, be it technology or skills. We also contend with a fast evolving environment where companies like ours need to adapt quickly. “ Whether the challenge was economic, technological or just plain simple business, Cardone says the company overcame them all by following a customer centric approach.

“We focused on delivering the right products and services at the right time.

That, in essence, is the bottom line. On the other hand, the value of a systems integrator is to become the right medium between business needs and the use of IT. Skills are very different now as customer needs have changed and it’s important to keep ourselves constantly updated in order to face today’s challenges,” Cardone adds.

Cardone who prior to joining GBM, spent close to 25 years at IBM across various roles including VP of HR for South Europe, IBM VP of EMEA operations and IBM GM for the MEA region, believes that the role of a group executive changes as the culture of the company changes. In addition, the responsibilities

evolve in accordance with changes in the market and customer environment.

“The economic recession has reminded us that as company leaders, we must keep our feet on the ground and maintain our growth strategies in line with how we predict the economic landscape to be,” he says.

Cardone believes that without passion one cannot be successful. Even after 37 years in the business, he says he enjoys every minute of what he does. He adds that the ability to look ahead and make decisions based on long term strategies is equally important. These strategies, he feels must work with a company’s strengths while addressing its’ weaknesses. The tricky part is balancing your focus on with the need to remain flexible in order to adapt market dynamics, he adds.

Cardone adds that the ability to understand the market, the industry and its various components and stakeholders is fundamental to success. “The IT industry moves very fast and we are always trying to foresee the challenges and opportunities that the next six months to a year will bring. The complexities of the market can be overcome by being prepared for future requirements as the market changes. A huge part of success lies in increasing the skills of individuals you employ and then the number of people you can afford to employ. Finally, I believe a little bit of luck goes a long way,” Cardone says.

“Making the right decisions is not always difficult,” he says. There is a great chance of risk involved, which according to him is both, the most challenging and the most enjoyable part of being a CEO Perhaps the most challenging part is when you need to make crucial decisions. “It is very dangerous to build prejudice or have sympathy based on affinity or any other personal emotions. It is always important to remind yourself that your customer’s benefit as a priority,” he says.

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COVER FEATURE Group IT Executives

Ehsan Hashemi, COO, Golden Systems Electronics “My priority has been to build a strong team, lower operational costs and improve customer service. Having wide exposure to all aspects of the company’s business has played a significant role in my ability and plans to develop corporate and sales strategies for Golden Systems”

Ehsan Hashemi began his career at Golden Systems in 2001. First appointed territory manager, he was responsible for overlooking the components distributors’ GCC sales; Hashemi was then promoted to sales director in 2005 and to his current role as COO in 2008.

“My focus as the COO was not only to expand our product portfolio by bringing globally renowned vendors on board but also to strengthen our relationship with existing vendor partners. Over the last four years, we have increased our reach into CIS countries, North Africa and Iraq while strengthening our existing channel network by signing on new resellers across the region. Additionally, we have paid special attention to our channel and implemented a system to reward our channel partners for their commitment with our online customer loyalty program called Avardz,” Hashemi says.

“I enjoy working with our channel partners to create new programs and initiatives. I take pleasure in watching our partners enjoy the rewards and benefits they receive from dealing with Golden Systems,” he adds.

According to him, a distribution company can only be successful if it has a good basket of products, proper channel management and strong value added offerings such as training programs, events, support services, RMA programs and partner support and loyalty programs.

“Over the last 11 years, my contribution to the company, I believe, has been my focus on building a strong team of qualified and experienced professionals, who have taken the company to the next level. In 2008, I was instrumental in restructuring the company to accelerate future growth and help us concentrate on quality. We were able to grow our business further by tapping new market segments, expanding our sales channels and evolving the way the market operates by developing and pioneering new products and services,” Hashemi says.

He proudly adds that when most companies were struggling to survive in 2009, Golden Systems was one of the few that experienced significant growth.

“Not only was this possible because of proper planning, healthy stock rotation and inventory and cash flow management but also due to our strategy to concentrate on the undeveloped markets. This helped us compensate for the limited demand in major markets in this region. We had worked on a dynamic plan that would allow us to adjust to the market and this plan definitely worked for us,” Hashemi explains.

He continues, “The most important strategy we employed was working closely with the core companies in the field of processors such as Intel, Nvidia and AMD in order to better support the market. This strategy proved to be very important to drive the market.”

Having grown within the ranks at Golden Systems, Hashemi says that he now realises that the role of a group executive evolves continuously. “Not only does one have to acquire a thorough understanding of the day to day operations of the business, from finance and sales to logistics and inventory but he or she must also be well aware of changing market dynamics to spot the next big opportunity. A group executive today has to constantly refresh his mind to ensure his strategies are proactive rather than reactive for only then can the organisation remain agile and continue to grow,” he says.

For this reason, Hashemi believes that in order to be successful as a group executive, one must not only possess excellent leadership and team building skills but must also possess the strategic decision making ability and communication skills.

He advices young professional looking to make a career in the channel community to work hard, be sincere in their efforts and focus on building good relationships with the various stakeholders from customers to partners, vendors and most importantly, its employees.

An important aspect of growth is the tools required to achieve it. Once you set a goal, ensure that you obtain the necessary tools and resources to meet this goal,” Hashemi says.

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COVER FEATURE Group IT Executives

Hesham Tantawi, VP, Middle East, Africa & Turkey at Asbis “Understand all aspects of the market, familiarise yourself with economic scenarios in each region. Keep an eye on the bottom line and always remember that a successful business is one that benefits all its stakeholders. This knowledge and familiarity is essential, it will differentiate you from the unprofessional players in the market. The business is not all about making money, it is about people and relationships and if you get your relationships right, the world is your oyster”

Hesham Tantawi began his career in IT in 1986 as managing partner at El Khouly Trading, Cairo, Egypt. The company was initially established to import floppy disks to the country and less than a year began importing PC units in bulk quantities. Soon, El Khouly Trading went on to become an authorised distributor for Microsoft, Seagate, AST, Acer, ALR in addition to other Taiwanese brands to become one of the most prominent distribution companies in Egypt.

It was during his tenure at El Khouly Trading that Tantawi established a relationship with Asbis Middle East and in February 2002, he was initially appointed country GM and was soon promoted to regional sales director. In 2003, having demonstrated professionalism, reliability and initiative,Tantawi was appointed to his current position of VP, Middle East, Africa and Turkey at Asbis Middle East.

Back in 2003, the company reported revenues of USD 20 million, in comparison, in 2011; Asbis Middle East reported revenues approximating 20 million with offices in Algeria, Egypt, Morocco, KSA, Tunisia and the UAE. In addition to the growth of the distribution company, Tantawi played an, integral part in the development of Dubai Computer Group. Established in 2007 to represent the interests of the computer Industry in the city of Dubai, today DCG represents over 200 IT companies comprising IT distributors, resellers, and system integrators in addition to software and networking companies. In fact, his efforts as a DCG board member lead to the implementation of customs duty exemption on technology products, which represents a significant advantage for all computer companies operating in Dubai.

Tantawi says in his position at Asbis Middle East, he particularly enjoys the ability to create an environment for symbiotic growth. “I believe that a group executive needs to exhibit commitment to his company, to its customers and

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partners. He must be honest in his efforts and conscious of the impact strategic decision will have on the entire community,” he says.

“Having been in the IT industry for more than 26 years, I have seen many players come and go. I have familiarised myself with the intricacies of the relationships and the sensitivities of the various markets we operate in. I have taken the time to invest my knowledge and time in building mutually beneficial and honest relationships with my customers as well as partners. I have focused the company’s strategy on assuming the role of a ‘trusted partner’ not just an IT distributor,” Tantawi adds.

According to him, it is this knowledge and focus that he contributes to the company. A firm believer in teamwork, Tantawi believes the organisation is as strong as its weakest link; this is why the company maintains a strong focus on delegation and nurturing talented individuals in the organisation to assume roles of leadership and increased responsibility.

Tantawi adds, that an organisation’s revenue generation capabilities alone, do not dictate its success. What’s equally important is the ability to maintain long term relationships with partners, customers and vendors. Asbis Middle East opened its doors in 1998 with a few vendors including Intel, Seagate and AMD. The company has maintained these relationships over the years for instance; it has strengthened its relationship with both Intel and Seagate over the last 20 years and with AMD over the last 15 years.

“Not only are relationships underpinned by trust, they are all the more stronger because of the degree of familiarity between us and vendor. Both parties are well aware of the other’s growth strategies, they know what we need from them and we know what they expect from us. We work together to reach out to the channel and the transparency and reliability of this relationships isn’t lost on the customers who benefits from excellent service,” he concludes.

Lee Reynolds, MD, Middle East and APAC at COMPUTERLINKS “I’ve never changed and I pride myself on that. I haven’t changed my management style or business principles and I don’t intend to. It may mean I have to deal with a lot more issues or push a lot more paper but that doesn’t bother me and I expect that of everybody in the company”

“I have worked in the IT industry most of my adult life and moved to the Middle East roughly 22 years ago. The journey from there to here has been fantastic; Dubai has given me my family, my children, money and everything else. The Middle East is home,” says Lee Reynolds, MD, Middle East and APAC at ComputerLinks.

Prior to joining ComputerLinks, Reynolds owned Fusion Distribution and before that he worked at an IT agency that looked after vendors that didn’t have representation in the Middle East.

He says, “The opportunity for a venture of the sort was huge at the time because vendors venturing into the Middle East and investing in the region without a thorough understanding of the market and the sensitivities wouldn’t be the wisest decision. We helped them develop their business plan quarter on quarter with a clear understanding of our responsibilities and those of the vendor.”

Reynolds adds that there are quite a few organisations that are still following this business strategy not realising that the ship has already sailed. “This region has developed, most prominent vendors have already established a local presence,” he says.

It was during his tenure at the IT agency that Reynolds noticed an opportunity to set up an organisation that focused solely on security distribution.

“I saw the vision of what a security distributor should be, I see a lot of companies in the region claiming to be security distributors but they’re not. They don’t understand security technology or how the need varies across verticals or organisations. They just have security divisions. ComputerLinks as a group is the largest security distributor in the world, we don’t just have one division but are entirely focused on security and we don’t really intend to branch out from that. We don’t want to be an organisation that collects a huge basket of vendors and does nothing proactive, we strive to add value and satisfy our customers and to enhance the skills of our partners ” he says.

Reynolds believes there needs to be an element of entrepreneurship across any position, a trait the company tries to hone within its own employees.

“We empower individuals to be in their own space to make decisions and give them the ‘rope to hang themselves’; which rarely happens. We believe this to be an effective management style, so we kind of over view people but don’t tell them what to do. I am still involved in the business, I see both my customers and partners, we still touch every part of the business and I am careful to always keep my doors open,” he says.

According to him, his management structure is simple with people in every office across every territory. He then appoints a manager across every office and a manager for every territory, these managers report to him. This naturally means that he starts his day off fairly early with offices across Australia, India, Singapore and Hong Kong. Often starting his day with a call from the company’s office in Australia, Reynolds says he likes to stay connected and know exactly what is going on with every aspect of the business.

“I try and meet every new employee. People, products and a clear strategy make a successful distribution company,” he says.

His simple instructions to his staff are “Always answer your mobile phone, do your emails in a timely fashion, whatever you say you do; you exceed expectations and commitments” Reynolds says he enjoys the fast paced rush of the channel. “I especially enjoy it when a smaller organisation becomes a threat to some of the bigger players. In fact, I personally spend a lot of time coaching and mentoring smaller organisations, helping them work out the right strategy. I like a balanced channel that exceeds in skill sets,” Reynolds says.

“Never be content. Remember to be successful is one thing, to keep being successful is another. Similarly, to be number one is difficult but to stay number one is even harder,” Reynolds concludes.

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COVER FEATURE Group IT Executives

Mario Gay, GM at Mindware “Don’t be scared to get your hands dirty because the only way you can learn the intricacies of this industry are when you understand its daily operations. It is important that you begin understanding the difficulties, because without this knowledge you will never be able to address them in the future”

Mario Gay began his journey in the channel five years ago when he joined Mindware, prior to joining the company, he says, his job responsibilities were altogether separated from channel operations. “I had no visibility of channel operations, no idea what it took and therefore I had to learn from scratch. I had to unlearn what I already knew and relearn the essentials,” he says.

Prior to joining Mindware, he worked with Intel for a span of more than ten years, with roles in finance and Intel Capital.

However, he says he was always a techie focused on the finance side of things. “I was particularly interested in technology for finance and understood the importance of technology yet I had no clue of channel operations,” Gay says. I In fact, even at Mindware, he started off with roles across finance and operations, which gave him time to familiarise himself with the industry and learn and understand the challenges involved. “For instance, I began by understanding the challenges from the sales and marketing perspective, I began acquiring knowledge of the market from the sales people who ultimately interacted with the end users and dealt with market perceptions. I began my career here by questioning myself about the value that I could bring as an outsider because that I believe is the biggest challenge, yet is the key to understanding,” he says.

When one comes from a finance or investment background, there is no doubt you are sharp yet you are limited in your vision, he believes. This is why, Gay believes a successful group executive is one who is constantly listening and possesses the ability to make a decision and execute it to the hilt, leaving no stone unturned.

“When you come from a finance background, you always have one foot on the ground and are less likely to listen to the bells and whistles of anybody who walks through the door claiming to offer you an opportunity worth tens of millions of dollars. You tend to be more realistic and understand no matter how unique the opportunity, you can’t leverage it without proper planning. You look out for proper business plans instead of wide claims and you

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consciously invest time in reference checks to forecast the ability to succeed if you do take on the opportunity,” he says.

He believes that the ability to maintain commitment to the stakeholder- customers, employees and shareholders is what will ultimately differentiate the company and dictate your ability to succeed.

At Mindware, Gay says that as part of his role one of key essentials that he has brought to the organisation is the focus on performance and rewards for performance. “If a person knows what he or she is doing and is achieving the results and is passionate about his work they have the right to grow within the ranks and deserve recognition,” he says.

He has invested in bigger teams, bought on new offices and therefore strengthened the company’s reach. Most importantly, Gay places immense importance on marketing and promoting the company, its vendor portfolio and its initiatives for partners through regular awareness campaigns.

“The channel is an industry where one can make a decision and almost immediately begin to notice the results or consequences of those decisions. This is perhaps the element I enjoy the most. However, I find that the high attrition in the market is a considerable challenge because as an organisation, we consciously invest in our employees. The nature of the industry is such that people move from roles within the distribution space into the vendor arena, so retaining good people is a challenge because it is disheartening sometimes to see that despite the room for growth within the organisation and the significant investment that goes into building their skill sets and preparing them for bigger roles, the grass for them is always greener on the other side,” he says.

When hiring, Gay looks for a ‘spark in their eyes’. He believes himself to be a fairly good judge of character and almost always manages to a get a good grip on a person’s aptitude, abilities and ambitions during the course of an interview. “Of course, I’ve made mistakes for human nature is tricky,” he says.

Mehdi Amjad, CEO of Almasa Holdings “I never stop learning or sharpening my skills, and have always encouraged others in my organization to do the same. I always task my team with finding new challenges and opportunities to grow the business vertically and horizontally – and ensure that all ideas are heard and evaluated”

“The world has changed dramatically over the past 10 years, causing many companies to re-examine their senior management teams and the roles of the members of those teams. A wise man said “Nothing is forever except change”.

Flexibility is a characteristic that every group executive needs, particularly in such turbulent and difficult economic times,” says Mehdi Amjad, CEO at Almasa Holdings.

He adds that he believes the fundamentals of the role haven’t changed for it is still about achieving results through business. “The executive is there to provide guidance and advice when asked but to leave it to the individual business leaders to make the decisions about how people should be executing in their individual businesses. This helps create an all round intelligent organisation that has the capacity to innovate and can be responsive to market needs,” he says.

He adds that it took twenty years for Almasa IT Distribution to evolve from a small start-up shop in Dubai to a leading IT distribution conglomerate in the region. “I believe this was because we always kept a close eye on consumer behaviour and anticipated market trends. We always followed opportunities where they arose, believing that wherever there’s a challenge, there’s an opportunity. The plan was simple, deliver steady growth while expanding the company’s reach. We were able to achieve this by attracting and engaging top-talent and signing-up with leading IT manufacturers who shared the company’s vision and commitment to the region,” Amjad states.

He shares a few essentials that he believes make for a successful IT distribution business. “Understand that IT distribution is a low margin business and always strive to achieve optimum utilisation of all available resources. Know your market needs and anticipate future demand in order to introduce the right product mix and maximise profitability. Select the right channel mix and ensure that you keep an excellent relationship with them. They are your first contact with the customers and have a wealth of market knowledge. Most importantly, focus on

providing optimal customer service and remember that your customer base is your biggest asset,” he says.

Amjad states that the company takes great pride in the relationships it has established with channel partners. “They are – and will remain, an integral part of Almasa’s success story, and their input and feedback helps develop our future growth strategies,” he adds.

In addition, he believes that Almasa IT Distribution’s focus on delivering ‘customer delight’ through value addition is central to its success story. A major part of this, he says is appointing top talent with local and regional experience who have shared his vision and focus on delivering an unparalleled level of service, support, logistics and competitive pricing to the marketplace.

“I continue to work with all channel partners to ensure that customers are offered the advantages associated with solid and diverse supply and demand chains. Meaning customers receive competitive pricing, stock availability, product reliability, on-time delivery and excellent after sales service,” Amjad adds.

As the CEO and mentor, Amjad makes sure he has a clear plan and a compelling strategy that his team and partners believe in and support. He focuses on deadlines and delivery in order to enforce a mindset of execution across the organisation.

He advices young professionals to focus on building momentum through their career climb. “By momentum I mean, one needs to constantly learn, evolve and adapt. If you have momentum it will sustain you through the different phases of your business life and cycle. It’s like riding a bike - if you come to a steep hill with the momentum gained from coming down the previous hill, you have a much better chance of getting up it than if you simply started from the bottom of the hill.

Momentum implies that you have both speed and direction, so you can continue on your successful path while making the necessary adjustments.

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Iomega® StorCenter™ Network Storage

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© 2012 Iomega Corporation. All rights reserved. Iomega, StorCenter, and the stylized “i” logo are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Iomega Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. EMC and EMC Lifeline are registered trademarks or trademarks of EMC Corporation in the United States and other countries.

Certain other product names, brand names and company names may be trademarks or designations or their respective owners.

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COVER FEATURE Group IT Executives

Steve Lockie, group managing director at Westcon Middle East Group “A clear understanding of what you are and what value and services you provide is key to any company.

In IT distribution you have to have flawless execution of the basics and only then can you start to propose to add value. I also believe you have to get the correct balance between your supplier ‘customers’ and your reseller ‘customers’, if there is a mismatch then success is hard to achieve”

Steve Lockie trained as a programmer and then began working as a computer operator. He then joined a start up called Azlan in the UK where he was appointed a systems engineer. “With the explosive growth in PC LAN and networking I rose to the heady heights of product marketing manager before eventually moving onto Tech Data to head their networking and server business in the UK. I then moved to the UAE in 1999 to head the company’s MENA operations. In 2004 I moved back to head the UK but continued managing the company’s ME operations and three years later was approached by Datatec, Westcon’s holding company to come back to the Gulf to start Comstor’s operations here in 2007. I finally assumed my role at Westcon Group as group managing director at Westcon Middle East Group in 2008,” he says.

Having worked in the region and witnessed its evolution, Lockie believes the biggest change has been in HR and compliance policies.

“In the 1990’s, organisations seemed to support bringing resources to the region and squeezing skills from them, employees were seen to be expendable resources rather than the engaged employees we have in the region today. We pride ourselves in having highly engaged employees and a vibrant, open working environment where we assist and develop our people to assume greater responsibility and growth within the company,” he says.

“In terms of Compliance, when we first came to the region it acted as our biggest limiting factor, the compliant market in the Gulf was just a fraction of the overall trade through the region and we worked hard to really understand our truly addressable markets and focus on them. That market ‘limitation’ has now become our single largest USP as vendors insist and rely on compliant business practices at all levels from their employees, their partners and the channel as a whole.

Managing these changes and building and developing the culture to sustain these areas has been key to our success,” Lockie adds.

For this reason, he believes a group executive must be a passionate, visionary, who is experienced and fair in his approach. A group executive needs to set strong foundations within an open and challenging leadership team which contributes at all levels and is adaptable and equally resilient during the good and bad times.

“You either love or hate the channel! It is so changeable; hence you must enjoy and thrive on change. An inbuilt flexibility in your strategy and approach at all times to keep your organisation nimble and fit for purpose is essential. The biggest challenge is to try to create the right balance between all the aspects of the role especially when market events or conditions create additional pressures,” Lockie says.

He continues, “I believe we can only be successful if we move together as a team and I am proud to work with some great people who directly contribute to the strategy of our company. I think we have made less mistakes, clearly good judgment comes from not making the same mistakes twice! Highly engaged employees, the adoption and development of our global ‘Westcon Way recruit, enable and grow model’ and a dogged determination to get the basics right remain central to our success.”

Lockie believes that his distribution and channel experience together with his ability to build winning teams and a balanced outlook are the traits that have helped him grow professionally. He advices young professionals to take every bit of training and development advice that comes their way. “Keep your eyes open and understand the DNA of your organisation and the business, position yourself to succeed. Remember that relationships are key at all levels and your ability to communicate and build rock solid relationships will only take you higher” he concludes.

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COVER FEATURE Group IT Executives

Tamer Ismail, CEO, BDL Group “Being professional, polite and modest are perhaps the most important qualities for any human being, but if you want to be successful you must possess the ability to accept criticism and learn from your mistakes. You must trust your seniors to know better and always be open to learning. That coupled with your focus and vision can take you to the dizzying heights of success”

Tamer Ismail specialised in international economy and foreign trade at University in Egypt. While pursuing his MBA, he worked at a local IT company in a customer support role where he familiarised himself with servers and networking technology.

He then moved to Saudi Arabia, where he worked as executive manager at a prominent distribution company. In 2003, Ismail was appointed sales manager at BDL Group and was promoted to marketing manager in less than a year. Three years later, he was appointed general manager of the company having shown his aptitude and passion to succeed. At the time the company reported revenues of approximately USD10 million a year.

Having organically grown through the ranks at the BDL Group, Ismail believes a group executive needs to be hands on and aware of even the most minor details of daily operations across all the different departments.

He believes, in his role he ensures the company is prepared for every eventuality.

“The IT channel is dynamic, challenging and fast paced. Add to that the complexities of the current economic and political environment and the rapid evolution of technology itself and you have yourself a situation that demands all your attention,” he says. From finance and cash flow to logistics and service value adds, he focuses on every aspect of the business.

The company today generates revenues approximating USD770 million. He believes this is only because the company maintains transparent operations with all its vendors and its team works hard to meet the needs of customers, while looking out for emerging opportunities for the benefit of the entire ecosystem.

Ismail adds that the ability to forecast and predict technology movements as well surges or drops in customer demand are extremely critical when implementing or revising strategies. “This is why a group executive needs to be someone who reads a lot and is updated on movements of the larger market, the industry as well as his

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competitors. The ability to forecast is the elixir of life in an industry where companies can go bust overnight,” he explains.

He says that he doesn’t believe that he alone has contributed to the growth of the company; instead he prides his efforts to attract and build a team that shares his vision for the long term.

“I believe in my team and am loyal to them. At BDL, we believe in motivation and sharing the fruits of labour. We do not deny a deserve candidate an opportunity for growth nor do we underestimate the capabilities of any new employees. We continuously engage in team building campaigns to instil a culture of trust and loyalty within the organisation. I believe that motivation comes with success and one needs to perform to be successful both at the personal and organisation’s level. I treat my team like a family, listening, sharing and guiding should they need it,” he says.

The company focuses on building relationships with key customer verticals. For instance, a huge portion of the company’s revenues come from the growth in large scale government investment in IT within Saudi Arabia. BDL, with its pure hardware portfolio, has tapped into key enterprise segments such as government, education, public sector, oil and gas, energy and healthcare to sustain its rate of growth.

Naturally this doesn’t come easy. Ismail says that the company has consciously invested in building a skilled pool of sales and engineering resources that are more than capable to exceed the expectations of customers. “We look at our employees as resource that needs to be constantly invested in through training and knowledge transfer. We provide them with all the necessary tools in addition to creating an environment of learning. From technical and sales training to vertical trainings, we ensure our employees are ready for any challenge. Today, not only do they understand the technology but they understand the diverse needs from technology across different industries,” he concludes.

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COVER FEATURE Group IT Executives

Vasant Menghani, MD, Quality Gulf “Envision your success story. Set down your short term goals and plan out how you want to go about achieving them. While your experience and qualifications will take you far, your ability to listen and build strong relationships with people from diverse backgrounds will take you further”

Vasant Menghani founded Quality Computers in 1988, back then it was just a showroom establishment with a small range of PC peripherals. Suffice to say that this isn’t the case anymore. The company has grown exponentially over the last 23 years, manufacturing tablet PCs, HR and accounting software in addition to a much larger range of PC peripherals.

Naturally, this growth did not come easy. “When we started off we signed on with components manufacturers in Thailand and Singapore and set up a factory in Dubai. We soon faced the music for while competition was intense not just in terms of price, our competitors were also much larger and better known. This is when we launched our brand ‘Touchmate’ to with the aim to cater to medium to low income segment of consumers. We worked hard and we worked smart at creating products that delivered the experience of a much more expensive brand at half the cost. This became our USP and today, Touchmate tablets, speakers, monitors and a whole host of other products are available across almost all the majoy hypermarkets and are distributed across 70 countries,” Menghani says.

The challenge when growing the business was not just about surviving the competition but was also associated with raising brand awareness. “It takes time and a conscious effort to influence a customer’s decision. With so many better known brands in the market, this task became all the more difficult. Yet we succeeded because while we were patient, we also consciously invested in a number of marketing and promotion activities to get the word out there,” he says.

Menghani says that it is his unrelenting strive for success coupled with focus on delivering value to the low cost consumer segment is perhaps central to the organisation’s success. “Instead of sitting back and worrying about losing out to the bigger players, we revised our strategy to focus on the untapped segment of the market.

I say untapped because many a product like PCs and tablet were well out of the reach of

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the medium to low range income segment of consumers. While we focused on creating products for this market, the rate of growth we are currently witnessing is the testament to the fact that we never compromised on quality,” he states.

Another key aspect that has been instrumental to the company’s growth, he says, are the people that he attracted to work with the company. “Because we started small, in essence the business is run like a family. With open communication and room for delegation, we encourage knowledge sharing and never deny a deserving candidate the opportunity to grow within the ranks. This has nurtured a culture of loyalty within the organisation and motivates employees to participate across all levels of decision making while encouraging them to keep up their performance,” Menghani adds.

He believes that an individual’s relationship building skills are perhaps all the more necessary in a competitive industry. “Business is all about the stakeholders, if the customers and partners aren’t happy then the business will not survive. One must always remember to promise only what he or she can deliver, this applies to the organisation and its partners. A company must understand its business, the markets it operates across in addition to the sentiments of the people it so often engages with be it customers, partners or even employees,” he says.

He adds that the ability to be observant, empathic and perceptive are key to a group executive’s role. “One must be aware of both the internal and external environment of the organisation. In a fast paced dynamic environment as ours, a group executive must be well informed of every opportunity and anticipate every challenge well in advance. He or she needs to be focused on the company’s long term vision and ready with contingency plans to counter the effects of unforeseen changes. He must be a go getter, ready to take a risk, never shy of a challenge,” Menghani states.

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FEATURE Video conferencing

SNAPSHOT Video conferencing (VC) represents a steadily maturing technology that offers the channel huge opportunities. We speak to vendors and partners to discover how the adoption of VC solutions is advancing in the region and their outlook for the future.

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IT investments across Middle East organisations are fast evolving. One area that is witnessing burgeoning interest is video conferencing (VC) technology that was earlier viewed a luxury investment reserved for larger multinational corporations as a means of communicating with disparate offices.

Although video conferencing technologies are still available at considerably elevated price points, the competition within this space has steadily grown with more vendors offering competitive and user friendly video conferencing technology, and more channel players acquiring the certifications needed to deploy and service these technologies.

Today, this technology is very much within the reach of the region’s SMB segment.

According to industry stakeholders the adoption of the latest video conferencing solutions is driven by a number of corroborating factors.

While the primary reasons include the cost reduction benefits and travel time saving, IT professionals believe the gradual uptake of this technology is also associated with the maturing of the technology that has led more organisations to see the tangible ROI from the deployment of VC technology.

“A recent study conducted by the Aberdeen Group, looking at remote and collaborative product development, found that the time needed to bring products to market was reduced by 16% through video collaboration. This is an impressive benefit in an R&D setting and an indication of the type of competitive advantage and time savings that can be delivered in more common day-to-day working practises,” says Nidal Abou-Ltaif, VP of Emerging Markets at Avaya

Wael Abdulal, collaboration manager at Cisco UAE agrees. “For the same amount of time I need to travel to meet customers, I can triple the number of customers I can meet by leveraging video conferencing. With VC, I have the ability to bring subject matter experts on the spot and this could mean a much shorter sales cycle,” he explains.

He adds, “Video is a powerful tool. It can bridge distances and cultures, persuade and inform, monitor and protect.”

Hani Nofal, Integrated Networking and Site Services (INSS) director at Gulf Business Machines (GBM) says that many businesses are now looking at these technologies to enhance customer experiences, reach out to new markets and enhance existing business models.

“As a result, companies now want to use it as a tool not only to communicate internally but to generate new revenue streams. For instance, banks or retail businesses can use these technologies to interact with customers remotely by making a virtual agent available to customers at branches or through customised kiosks. Education institutes can

Mohammed Areff, MD, Middle East and Pakistan, Avaya

A recent study conducted by the Aberdeen Group, looking at remote and collaborative product development, found that the time needed to bring products to market was reduced by 16% through video collaboration.”

use these technologies to provide access to more students through online learning.

They can even provide existing students with better resources through virtual guest lectures. And healthcare institutions are already using these technologies to bring medical experts remotely into operations rooms or clinics,” he says.

The adoption of this technology in the Middle East was also earlier hindered by bandwidth restrictions that forced users to shell out huge sums of money to provision ISDN connectivity. “Today, the increased availability of video conferencing technologies that offer better bandwidth utilisation coupled with the availability of better broadband services makes this technology a lot more affordable, especially when justifying the ROI,” says Dharmendra Parmar, GM, marketing at FVC, a prominent VAD for Polycom and other unified communications solutions.

Technical advances Cisco’s Abdulal believes that there are yet some factors to be addressed to help boost the adoption of the latest VC solutions.

“Today, the video systems that are commonly seen in the workplace tend to be difficult to use and limited in their ability to integrate with other systems. In comparison, video applications in the consumer market have been far more widely adopted. User acceptance has been driven by ease of use, and low cost. To achieve a similar usage pattern, business video needs to be easy to use with a quantifiable return on investment (ROI). Corporate solutions must also enable video applications to integrate easily with business processes and other applications in order to drive additional benefits. Customers are investing in technologies such as VC and telepresence to improve staff productivity, reduce expenses and shorten sales cycles,” he says.

Avaya’s Abou-Ltaif agrees saying that even the large scale adoption of the bringyour-own-device (BYOD) trend is driven by this simplicity. “People want the ease of the iPad, the iPhone or an Android device to help them do their job quickly and efficiently. They want simplicity of use but without any limits on functionality. Businesses keen to realise

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FEATURE Video conferencing

the benefits of video must address this. Video must deliver the same kinds of features that you have when making or receiving regular phone calls: access to your global dial plan, ad hoc conferencing, easy call transfer, and the same quality of experience regardless of location or device. It is only then that endsusers will consider using video in the way that the business can truly benefit,” he says.

However, vendors are actively working towards addressing these challenges.

“We have seen lots of commercial solutions in the market that can guarantee high definition capability, but they can’t guarantee the experience, and this is the key difference between a good and bad video solution. I am not here referring only to network and bandwidth availability, it is about guaranteeing the experience, whether you are on a private or public network. It is about adjusting the experience to the network conditions. Video is vital to Cisco’s strategy and among Cisco’s evolutionary offerings is Cisco Telepresence, which is a hot technology offering an evolutionary breakthrough technology that is designed to allow interaction and collaboration with ‘in person’ meeting experience,” Abdulal says.

Similarly, LifeSize’s HD video conferencing solutions are underpinned by open interoperable systems based on industry standards to bring the immersive telepresence experience to the board room, conference rooms, executive offices as well as remote workers says Pradeep Angeveetil,

Pradeep Angeveetil, regional manager, Middle East and Africa at LifeSize Communications

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regional manager, Middle East and Africa at LifeSize Communications.

Suffice to say that the video conferencing industry is still in the early stages of development, yet vendors believe this is a niche product segment that requires establishing partnerships with the right channel entities to sustain profitable growth.

Broad strategies are focused on establishing long term, close knit relationships with channel partners. While these relationships are marked by the initial stages of handholding, vendors believe this is only to ensure that the partners understand the value proposition behind these technologies.

“We work closely with our partners to help them understand the difference between the value propositions that each of our solutions may bring to the customer.

In the long run, this helps the partners position the solutions for the customer’s vertical of operations. In addition, this aids partners in understanding the need for a video conferencing solution, whether it is needed for board room communications or for remote workers on their mobile devices.

This ultimately helps them tap into the key business drivers that lead customers to evaluate and consider new video options,” says Mohammed Areff, MD, Middle East and Pakistan, Avaya.

Although the technicalities behind the latest VC solutions require a consistent vendor presence, the channel plays a key role in delivering solutions. Vendors say that the multi faceted role of the channel is perhaps the key reason behind the careful consideration of potential partners. “Partners often act as both the distributor and systems integrators, often signing smaller contracts to provision video conferencing technology specialists, managed network providers or room integrators on site at the customer’s location. Although the products are fairly simple to use, they often require careful integration with the company’s existing infrastructure. This integration often needs to be replicated across multiple branch offices as well,” says Abdulal.

Vendors believe that in addition to selling the products, partners are also responsible for the growth of the entire video conferencing industry. “While they

Wael Abdulal, collaboration manager at Cisco UAE position and supply the product, partners also have to make sure that the customer ultimately gets what he or she has paid for.

This is why in addition to their technical abilities; partners are often graded on their vertical expertise and existing customer relationships,” says Areff.

Partners with rock solid relationships across the oil and gas, banking, education and government sectors are definitely an asset, vendors believe.

Knowledge is key Vendors offer an array of training options to help their partners leverage the many opportunities presented by this rapidly expanding technology arena.

“We ensure that the partners demonstrate the LifeSize experience in the client’s environment. We offer demo assistance to our partners and also assist in pre sales activity. A lot of partners specialising in unified communications have adopted VC from LifeSize, and this is due to our commitment to open and interoperable standards,” says Angeveetil.

According to him, partners can achieve an array of sales and technical certifications through LifeSize’s training delivery portal called the LifeSize Enablement Network (LEN) at no fee. LEN is a new online social learning platform that delivers training on LifeSize products and solutions through a series of short, engaging HD video episodes.

The videos are strategically designed for sales professionals, installers, administrators, support personnel and users.

When making the correct choice is everything! ...We step in close to our customer in every way

UAE / Jebel Ali +971 4 8811191 a.saji@despe.ae

Authorized Distributor

LEBANON /Beirut +961 4 717762 s.bachir@despec.ae

MERA

KSA/ Riyadh +966 1 464 0012 k.saqib@despec.ae

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JORDAN / Amman +962 656 26440 k.ehab@despec.ae

UGANDA / Kampala +256 (0) 71104 3292 salesinfo@despec.co.ug

TANZANIA / Dar-Es-Salaam +255 22 2151349 salesinfo@despec.tz

KENYA / Nairobi +254 733 600421 / +254 722 511741 salesinfo@despec.co.ke

Head Office: DESPEC MERA LTD | P.O.Box 61050, Jebel Ali Free Zone, UAE | Tel: +97148811191 | Fax: +9714 8811190 | Email: sales@despec.ae | www.despec.com

FEATURE Video conferencing

Roger El Tawil, executive director at Almasa Value Distribiution LEN users also have access to a wealth of interactive tools such as quizzes, downloadable sales assistance and personalised newscasts, which can be accessed on any browser or mobile device.

Episodes focus on the features and benefits of LifeSize solutions, in addition to providing information on industry best practices, techniques and video conferencing etiquette.

“We also have technical workshops around the region where partners can experience our technologies first hand in order to provide thorough proof of concept (POC) to the customers,” Angeveetil adds.

Cisco’s Abdulal says, “Some partners choose to start with the high-end pervasive telepresence and others choose to start with desktop video conferencing. The programs we have developed fit across the spectrum of solutions Cisco offers. We also have programs developed to equip partners with the skills and expertise needed to cater to specific verticals and business segments. Depending on the certification that our channels choose, they could achieve it by either attending Web-based or instructor-based trainings. This is also available through our training partners.

These training sessions are available before products are launched.”

“The Cisco Authorised Technology Provider (ATP) certification is mandatory for the channel in order to sell the VC solutions and ensure adequate training and enablement for partners prior to them positioning these solutions into the market.

This programme is complimented by various

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promotions like the Cisco Collaboration Breakaway program that further rewards partners for focusing on this technology,” says Renton D’souza, divisional director at Comstor, a prominent distributor of Cisco’s collaboration portfolio.

Partners are also working with vendors as an extension of their training arm in addition to helping them identify other potential distributors and resellers in the region.

“Comstor is working closely with Cisco around the TelePresence (TP) SMB program that identifies the next set of partners who show an interest in selling these solutions.

We have focused on a host of fast tracks or promotions, and webinars to create awareness and ‘recruit, enable and grow’ our partners,” says D’souza.

GBM is a Cisco certified TelePresence Advanced Technology Partner with experienced and trained staff to deploy large scale TelePresence solutions. The company’s qualified consultants hold specialised certifications such as Cisco TelePresence Solutions Specialist and Cisco Rich Media Communications Specialist.

GBM recently announced that it had acquired TelePresence Video Advanced Authorised Technology Provider (ATP) status from Cisco. “In addition, GBM delivers training and certifications backed up by vendors and partners in the region through GBM Learning Services. We continue to evolve our training portfolio to cater for our expanded solutions line and users requirements. Through a series of workshops and training sessions

Renton D’souza, divisional director at Comstor

focused on partners as well as end users, we provision skills based on implementation, processing and administering the latest Cisco collaboration and video conferencing solutions,” says Nofal.

Almasa Value Distriution, extends Avaya VC solutions across the regional channels.

According to Roger El Tawil, executive director at Almasa Value Distribiution ensures that resellers have the necessary expertise in solution integration.

The company works with resellers to develop solid skill sets in industry vertical solutions through training sessions focused on configuration, implementation and selling. “We encourage our resellers to gain telephony and communication knowledge – allowing them to implement and educate the end user on VC technologies while continuing to provide user training to help organisations leverage the technology they have invested in. We also offer product demonstrations and sales assistance for our partners,” he adds.

Similarly, FVC, an authorised distributor and training partner for Polycom across the MENA region works with partners on the ground to offer technical as well as pre-sales assistance. “We have demonstration centres and executive briefing centres in our offices around the region where we not only host our partners for regular training sessions, but also encourage them to invite their customers for regular demonstrations,” says Parmar.

Parmar adds that the company’s channel strategy is built around a couple of key drivers for partners under FVC’s ‘Cheer’ partner program. “Through regular awareness campaigns, we aim to generate demand for advanced VC solutions for the entire channel,” he says.

“With more than 10 years in this field, we have invested heavily in specialists covering pre-sales, sales and support functions, ensuring support at all levels for our partners and their customers. Our offices in UAE, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon and Egypt are equipped to conduct these training sessions at local levels through our briefing centres equipped with the latest unified communications solutions.

In addition, we offer complementary technologies including solutions from Riverbed and Lancope that help improve the performance of video calls. We also provide

specialty equipment like Vaddio cameras and control systems as well as Global Media telemedicine solutions for the education and medical industry respectively,” Parmar states.

Offering value In addition to the technical aspect, partners are adding value to their vendor portfolios through an extension of services.

For instance, Almasa Value Distribution offers its partners a variety of options including rebates, sales incentives in addition to warehousing, shipping and packaging services. The company also offers partners and customers a Return Merchandise Authorisation (RMA) as after sales support for ‘in-warranty’ products GBM offers partners with system integration and professional services. The company’s multi disciplined team boasts extensive implementation experience across a wide range of verticals including education, manufacturing, oil and gas, hospitality, transport, healthcare and utilities. This experience is then carried forward through GBM Learning Services.

Comstor offers sales and marketing training in addition to giving resellers access to third party competitive analysis and valuable information on promotions and offers. The company also helps partners broaden their reach through alliances with marketing organisations and the ability to offer global delivery. “There are probably some aspects of providing solutions that most resellers don’t want their team to focus on: logistics, fulfillment, staging, procurement, and invoicing and credit management.

These are all areas where Comstor can provide support. By trusting Comstor with the operations and logistics portions of a sale, reseller teams can focus on selling, relationship building, prospecting, building and delivery of solutions,” says D’souza.

Resellers can also leverage the company’s buying and inventory management resources and flexible financing solutions.

FVC helps partners target the region’s booming SMB market that are often deterred from investing in video conferencing solutions due to the huge costs associated with setting up a robust telepresence infrastructure. “We have signed agreements with some of the

Internet Service Providers (ISPs) across the region and are able to offer these solutions through these ISPs on an opex model, providing faster ROI,” adds Parmar.

Its these initiatives that have together contributed to the spurge in demand for VC solutions, vendors and partners believe.

“We have seen a steady double-digit growth in video conferencing solutions over the past few years as people realised the business benefits, especially in a geographically diverse region like the Middle East,” says Parmar.

GBM’s Nofal says that the company has also witnessed healthy growth driven

months. Avaya has a strong and holistic offering, which allows partners and customers to leverage this growth area. Avaya will continue to drive video solutions addressing all the facets of customer need – including telepresence, mobile video, conference room and integrated video,” says Areff.

Abdulal agrees saying video will become a ‘norm’ of communication “Video is the biggest driver of future IP traffic growth.

Both consumers and businesses are driving this evolution. Video is becoming a key requirement for effective collaboration as increasing globalisation drives a desire for more personal contact across geographic and

Video applications in the consumer market have been far more widely adopted. User acceptance has been driven by ease of use, and low cost. To achieve a similar usage pattern, business video needs to be easy to use with a quantifiable return on investment (ROI). Corporate solutions must also enable video applications to integrate easily with business processes and other applications in order to drive additional benefits. Customers are investing in technologies such as VC and telepresence to improve staff productivity, reduce expenses and shorten sales cycles.” by customer’s demand, the availability of more affordable bandwidth and lower equipment cost.

“The revenue from collaboration as a whole and from VC solutions in particular has sky-rocketed in the last 18 months. The reasons could be the combination of a few factors – like the maturing of the technology, the ability for organisations to see tangible ROI from investing in these solutions and reduction in travel budgets due to the economic climate,” says Comstor’s D’souza.

Just the beginning Industry stakeholders believe that although the benefits of VC solutions can no longer be questioned, the technology is still young and there is a long way to go before we see large scale adoption of these technologies.

“We see an accelerated growth in the video market, continuing over the next 12-18

cultural boundaries. Video users now demand the ability to view any content, on any device, anywhere. To enable this greater volume of video, companies must need to recognise the role of the network as an integral foundation able to support these new, robust solutions and applications. The ubiquity of the IP protocol, combined with advances in networking, is transforming the use and value of video,” he adds.

GBM’s Nofal speaks of a different dynamic, believing that the changes to come will further challenge the relevance of the programs vendors have on offer.

“In general we have seen improvements over the last few months. However, this market place will continue to evolve dramatically over the next few years as the demand increases and new business and consumption models evolve such as video conferencing-as-a-service which will be

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FEATURE Video conferencing

offered from the cloud. I believe that vendors will be challenged to keep their programs relevant and attractive for their partners. In addition I would like to see such program evolve to recognise solutions providers with wider capabilities across multiple solutions and services such as mobility, cloud and unified collaboration,” Nofal states.

“Even with strong demand for VC capabilities and the value proposition for implementing it, VC deployments could be expensive. Beyond the capital expense, even large companies with large IT support groups may have difficulty deploying VC infrastructure, features and functionalities while still ensuring the quality of basic voice, data and video service,” he says.

Nofal believes that these challenges will eventually drive more customers to demand video conferencing-as-a-service. “The benefits include known, manageable costs,

Dharmendra Parmar, GM, marketing at FVC

no up-front capital expense, current versions and support for hardware and software, and assured levels of quality, reliability and availability. In uncertain times, outsourcing is proving to be a viable alternative to buying, installing and maintaining new infrastructure to support VC, especially for SMBs,” he says.

LifeSize’s Angeveetil agrees, saying that the company has already noted this trend and is currently offering its VC infrastructure via a virtual machine (VM) platform.

He also adds that we will witness a huge shift in enterprise VC technologies as they provision integration with mobile devices and social media solutions. “This shift has started at the consumer level with some of the new applications that we have seen on smartphones and tablet PCs. Enterprises are now thinking of taking advantage of that which will be required as more users demand to bring their own device to the workplace.

The ability of the VC solutions to evolve to become more affordable and take advantage of the growth in the mobile networks bandwidth and coverage besides mobile devices capabilities and penetration will drive a new phase of growth and innovation in this industry,” Nofal predicts.

El Tawil believes that as vendors continue to focus on driving simplicity and interoperability across the latest VC solutions, this form of communication will become more accepted across the Middle East region. He adds that the innovation of narrow band video conferencing, in addition to the emergence of the click to call or video concept will only drive demand further. “We will continue to witness a natural progression and evolution to the UC infrastructure. As video and audio

New business and consumption models evolve such as video conferencing-as-a-service which will be offered from the Cloud. I believe that vendors will be challenged to keep their programs relevant and attractive for their partners. In addition I would like to see such program evolve to recognise solutions providers with wider capabilities across multiple solutions and services such as mobility, cloud and unified collaboration.”

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Hani Nofal, Integrated Networking and Site Services (INSS) director at Gulf Business Machines (GBM) communication technologies continue to improve, there will be an increase in the ROI and the experience of video conferencing will become increasingly natural and intuitive to a wider range of users,” he says.

The future ahead seems bright and sunny. With vendors focusing their expertise on enhancing the flexibility of this technology and partners determined to maximise the functionality of VC solutions through training and certification, customers can now look forward to deploying these solutions at lower costs. The increasing competition within this space, coupled with the options of purchasing equipment on payper-use models will probably help vendors and partners finally tap into the region’s growing SMB segment. Most importantly, the fact that the channel plays a pivotal role in the go to market strategies of almost all the vendors offering these solutions ultimately means there are plenty more gains to be had. Now all we have to hope for is more innovation and more support from the vendors.

The moral of the story is as Abou-Ltaif puts it. “If the adoption of video in the enterprise is to truly become pervasive and if businesses are to really reap the benefits it can deliver, then simplicity, ubiquitous access and reliability must remain the watchwords at any and every stage of the deployment. It is only then that video will become the new voice and that video as simple as a phone call will reign supreme.” //

PRODUCT & TECHNOLOGY Review

LENOVO THINKPAD TABLET We say: Lenovo might not have factored in the weight and size issues when designing the ThinkPad Tablet, but they have brought us one of the best tablets the demanding business consumer can ask for.

Lenovo joins the Android Tablet club with two news devices, the IdeaPad K1 as consumer oriented tablet, and it’s more professional sibling the ThinkPad Tablet which we will be looking at this issue.

Fans of the ThinkPad franchise will really love the look of this tablet. My first laptop was an IBM ThinkPad so I really appreciated the throwback to that legendary device. Clean lines, jet black body with a matt finish, the “ i “ on the logo at the back has a dot that glows when the tablet is switched on, and the red tipped pen brings back memories of the good old rubber type pointing device that was the signature of all ThinkPad laptops.

The screen is a gorilla glass 10.1 inch (16:10) bright multi- touch display with large standard Android buttons at the bottom in portrait position, with a resolution of 1280×800 pixels.

At more than 700 grams, this tablet is definitely heavier than other Android Honeycomb tablets in the market. It is also one of the biggest in size and thickness (Almost 26 x 18 x 1.4 cm). Fortunately though, Lenovo makes up for that in features and performance.

Specifications and connectivity The ThinkPad packs an NVIDIA Tegra 2 DualCore 1GHz processor with a 1 GB memory running Android 3.1. It comes with 16, 32 or 64 GB of internal storage, and adding more storage has never been easier on a tablet as you can connect full size SD cards and even USB thumb drives thanks to its full sized USB port. It also has a micro USB port, mini-HDMI,

a headphone jack and comes with Wi-Fi and 3G connectivity.

Cameras and Speakers This tablet comes with a 2MP front-facing camera and a 5MP rear-facing camera but both cameras didn’t meet our expectations for good quality images. The photos had a vintage feel to them due to low saturated colours, which would have been great as an extra software feature but not a full time thing.

Compared to other tablets, the ThinkPad speakers weren’t as great either. After all, as mentioned previously, this tablet is meant for the business consumer.

The pen We feel that the pen is a must have with this tablet so it’s disappointing that it has to be bought separately. This is not just a standard stylus pen but an N-Trig DuoSense battery operated digitiser pen (requires 1 AAAA battery), which means that you can use it simultaneously with your hands for input, allowing you to comfortably rest your hand on the screen as you use the pen without causing any confusion. We would at least buy it for the red tip we mentioned previously.

The handwriting recognition is good enough if you use manuscript block letters; it wasn’t as effective with cursive handwriting.

Software This tablet is packed with apps. From business applications like “Documents to go”, which lets you create and edit office documents, and “PrinterShare” which lets you print basically anything from your laptop, to communication apps like “eBuddy” and “oovoo” for online instant messaging and video chat. This device also has eBook readers, movie and music streaming tools and a bunch of games.

Basically, this machine is geared to go.

Performance and accessories The battery gave a reasonable performance considering the size of the tablet Lenovo estimates a running time of a little over 8 hours when using a Wi-Fi connection. The charger was a medium sized unit with a micro-USB connector, and you can also charge using a standard USB connection but it’s a lot slower.

Lenovo offers a large collection of covers and accessories for this tablet, including a keyboard folio case that connects through the USB port and an optical pointer that looks like the old-school ThinkPad rubber pointer.

This review was done by Fahed Sabbagh – proud geek and passionate blogger. You can catch him wax poetic on all things geeky at www.nerdyface.com.

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PRODUCT & TECHNOLOGY Review

TOSHIBA PORTEGE ULTRABOOK We say: The Toshiba Portege is a small yet powerful Ultrabook that is well fitted with the correct features for people constantly on the move, it might not be designed for designer or gamers, but it can perform all of your dayto-day tasks. It’s a heavy weight player, in a very light weight shell.

The Portege strikes you as a really thin and light weight laptop; it is in fact lighter than all other Ultrabooks we’ve tried, weighing a little over 1kg, even lighter than the Macbook Air. Although it comes in different versions that vary in specs and processing power, they all share almost the same shape; a 13 inch screen in a brushed aluminum silver body, really sleek lines and hints of chrome around the hinges and touchpad buttons.

It looks a little less sturdy than the Lenovo but it is still well built and far from being a delicate device.

The Portege has a nice size keyboard that’s quite comfortable to use, as well as a decent multitouch touchpad that supports a few multitouch gestures. Higher end business models also come with a biometric fingerprint scanner.

Specifications & performance There are several versions of the Portege

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available in the market, fulfilling the needs of everyone from the average light-weight user to the more demanding business user.

With processors that vary between the Inter Core i3 to the Core i7, and a RAM of 4 or 6 GBs, performance is completely different from one version to another. However, we recommend going for the Inter Core i5 version, where you will have a much better performance than the i3, as opposed to the increase you’ll notice between the i5 and i7 versions, simply because you won’t be able to get the full power of a Core i7 processor on such a computer.

As is the case with all other Ultrabooks, and with its built-in Intel graphics chipset, it’s not designed for 3D gaming, CAD software, or any other heavy-weight software, it will run them, but one at a time.

The cooling fan on the Portege can get a little irritating especially if you’re bothered by high pitched noises. It isn’t extremely noisy but it is a noticeable noise.

The battery well with an average life of about 8 hours of moderate to light usage, quite as expected from an Ultrabook.

Multimedia & Connectivity The speakers aren’t that great but they aren’t that bad either, you’ll notice some hissing noise when the volume is pumped up all the way. You can however, connect a standard headset thanks to the separate microphone and headphone jacks, as well as a stereo Bluetooth headset through the builtin Bluetooth connectivity.

The Portege comes with 3 USB ports one of which is a USB3 and another is a sleep charge USB2, HDMI and LAN connectivity, as well as standard Intel WiFi and Intel WiDi (Wireless Display) so you can connect it to a bigger HDMI screen.

This review was done by Fahed Sabbagh – proud geek and passionate blogger. You can catch him wax poetic on all things geeky at www.nerdyface.com.

PEOPLE Abdalla Mustafa

Abdalla Mustafa, regional director at Emitac Distribution

The constant creative Abdalla Mustafa has been working his way up the career ranks at Emitac Distribution since 2004.

“I started as business development manager looking after Abu Dhabi before being promoted to sales manager for HP IPG & PSG in 2006. In 2009, Mustafa was once again promoted to director of sales and marketing,” he said.

Today, less than three years after his last promotion, Mustafa has been appointed regional director at Emitac Distribution.

In an industry marked by high attrition rates, Mustafa’s loyalty and commitment to Emitac Distribution does not go unnoticed, he says that his promotions have been based not just on his performance but also on his aptitude and his creative instincts.

“I enjoy marketing it allows you to be creative. We are currently undergoing an exciting time at Emitac Distribution, we are revitalising our brand. I am immensely proud of the fact that I have been part of a recent a seminar to where Emitac as a company worked at re defining its vision, mission and values,” Mustafa says.

A believer in the power of social media as a tool to build relationships with customers, Mustafa has most recently been involved in the creation of Emitac Distribution’s Facebook page.

A business graduate, Mustafa has consciously invested in continuous learning and education. “I have completed many professional courses. You should see the wall in my office; I display my certificates with pride because while acquiring new skills is important to me, education garners creativity for it helps me come up with new ideas,” he explains.

Mustafa says that during his early years at Emitac, he learnt the art of multi-tasking.

“When I was the business development manager for Abu Dhabi, working away from headquarters I assumed a number of roles from marketing and logistics to customer relations, sales and credit recovery as well.

Not only did I learn the importance of time management but it was then that I realised the importance of marketing activities and how the right approach to marketing can change the way customers perceive the brand and the organisation,” Mustafa states.

He adds that his strive to be the best is under pinned by his ambition to be a good role model to his children. Mustafa describes himself as a creative and simple individual who although humble, prides himself on his positivity and his ability to stay focused and make things happen.

He adds that he makes no secret of his aspiration to one day be a politician in his home country (India). “Not only do I hope to protect the rights of my people but I also want to help empower a nation that has so much to offer,” he says.

When not working, he enjoys spending time with his family. Whether they’re out for a swim or playing chess or even just browsing on his iPad or the family owned BlackBerry Playbook, Mustafa says these hours make the best memories.

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PEOPLE Sudarsan Chakravarthy

Sudarsan Chakravarthy, regional manager, IBM Systems and Technology Brands Group, Gulf Business Machines (GBM)

The philosopher Following his graduation from the Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Bangalore, Sudarsan Chakravarthy, intended to establish a career in the banking and finance sector.

As luck would have it, he joined IBM soon after graduating and 18 years later is still working in the IT sector as regional manager, IBM Systems and Technology Brands Group, Gulf Business Machines (GBM) “I have seen the industry come full circle – from mainframe centric computing to client-server distributed computing to web enabled computing and now back to consolidated and virtualised computing that is much like the mainframe model. Over these years, I have seen IT evolve from a business supporter to a business enabler that impacts every facet of our life and living,” Chakravarthy says.

He describes himself as a enthusiastic, resolute, honest individual who is resourceful and creative. “I enjoy achieving a win-win long-term partnership built on a foundation of trust, credibility, competence, mutual respect and inter-dependence,” he says.

Happily married with two young children, he adds that while his role at work is demanding of his time, he is family oriented and manages his time accordingly.

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He says, “I strongly believe in the saying: the Past is history, the future is a mystery and this moment is a gift. That is why this moment is called “the present”. I maintain work-life balance through the practice of acting in the NOW. When I am at work, I give my 100% attention and focus to the job on hand with no distractions from my personal life. Similarly after work, family time becomes sacrosanct and I give 100% of my attention to my personal life without any burdens of work pressure.”

Chakravarthy says that his role and tenure in the channel has taught him the art and science of building synergy. “The channel is all about understanding people and establishing relationships. Over the years, I have found myself to better understand and accept the perspectives and opinions of other people. It has also helped me respect and accept people for who they genuinely are,” he says.

According to him, while time management can be tricky, disconnecting himself from work pressures isn’t really as difficult a task. “I can easily switch on and switch off from situations and events. I always compartmentalise my work life and my personal life so that the boundaries are clear and not compromised,” Chakravarthy adds.

A typical day in his life begins with readying his children for school following which he

relishes his morning with a spot of meditation before heading out to the office. “Work usually begins with a customary catching up with the team on quickly summarising the actions needed for the day. Then it’s typically a busy schedule; working straight for more than nine hours. I prefer not taking too many breaks so that I can be home in time to spend some quality time with my family,” he says.

I am keenly interested in ancient wisdom, contemporary science, psychology, philosophy and spirituality.

Also, as a family we are connoisseurs of music, dance and drama and we all indulge in actively participating and conducting cultural programs like music and drama.

Another passion of mine is to conduct free empowerment workshops for children to foster nobility and greatness.

Chakravarthy hopes to one day run a global non-profit program that is aimed at reaching out to schools across the globe and offer a structured complementary education (free of cost) to create the noble citizens of tomorrow. “Through a series of workshops, children of the world will be inspired to live larger, better and noble lives and will be empowered to dream, dare and do so that they may re-define progress for themselves and for societies and nations at large,” he says.

PEOPLE Dan Smith

Dan Smith, head of integrated marketing for the Middle East and Africa region at Xerox’s Developing Markets Operations (DMO)

Passion and profession Dan Smith joined Xerox fresh out of Hertfordshire University in UK. He was first employed as a systems analyst for colour solutions and pre-sales technical support.

“In August 2000, I joined a team tasked with establishing a channels business model for Xerox U.K. Three years later, I began working with partner development in the U.K. and a Xerox sales team for enterprise-size organisations.

In October 2004 I joined the company’s Developing Markets Operations (DMO) to drive the Xerox Office strategy in the Middle East and Africa,” he says.

In 2007, Smith was appointed head of marketing for the Xerox DMO Office business, in his role he was responsible for overseeing a drive to maximise channel communication and demand generation in emerging markets.

Currently, Smith is the head of integrated marketing for the Middle East and Africa region of Xerox’s DMO. “I manage all facets of marketing – including channel communications, product marketing support, demand generation programs, electronic and e-marketing initiatives – for the Xerox lines of business in more than 70 countries comprising the Middle East and Africa region,” he says.

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Naturally, his role requires him to do quite a bit of travelling, an aspect he says he enjoys the most. “Xerox is not a direct company in the region and we have many trusted partners. To maintain our relationships with these partners, we constantly travel to their home countries to meet both their team and their customers.

This helps us work out how best we can help with their business issues or help them to develop emerging opportunities. This, I believe, is an opportunity not many people get in their profession,” Smith says.

He adds, “When travelling I enjoy socialising with my colleagues whose company I genuinely enjoy. Xerox is a diverse global company and in my team alone we have people representing eight diverse nationalities, each with a different view on the world which makes for some very interesting conversations.”

The depth and breadth of this job is what, Smith believes to be the most challenging yet the most enriching experience.

“I’ve had to learn how to multi task and make decisions on the fly. At Xerox we have a huge portfolio of services and products. One minute I’m working on an advertising campaign for Saudi Arabia and the next minute I’m working on branding in Morocco or pricing issues in

Ghana. This is immensely challenging but I have a fabulous team and rely on them every day to help with these challenges, delegation I’ve learnt is key,” Smith states.

Smith says that although ambitious, his desire to succeed is more about personal recognition than about material rewards. “I like to think I am good at what I do,” he says.

He is as passionate about his family, as he is about his profession. “If something is important enough I may make an exception, but nothing comes before spending time with my son and partner which is the most fun, enjoyable and rewarding thing in my personal life right now,” he adds.

When in the UK, Smith prioritises his time and does his best to get home in time to tuck his son into bed. A homebody by nature, Smith says the time spent with his family relaxes him more than anything else in the world. “Because my son doesn’t know how my day has been; he just wants my time and attention and this helps me to forget the stresses and strains of the day.

Always,” Smith says.

When not busy at work or spending time with his family, Smith catches up on movies often quoting lines from movies when interacting with people at work. A voracious reader, he says he hasn’t adopted e-readers for he likes the feel of books. While this is how he relaxes, Smith also likes to take some time to indulge in his passion for skiing and plays football at least five times a week when in the UK.

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