American Power Conversion’s (Nasdaq: APCC) regional headquarters in Dubai has announced some major changes in the support infrastructure for the region.
The first change has been the merging of the Middle East and African Sales Teams by APC's MEA Regional Manager Philip Hughes. Says Hughes "APC's ME & African sales teams have long been regarded as among the best in the IT Industry in this part of the world. Regionalization is a major step allowing us to have a much larger critical mass within APC's EMEA Operations. Within the two teams we had a number of supremely talented members who now have the ability to use that talent in a much larger business value. In addition, re-distributing our Sales Team resources allow us to better match the needs of our customers”.
Hughes continues,”The first phase of the regionalization went live on 1st October with the promotion of Anna Podgornaya to Regional Channel Manager MEA. Anna has 8 years of experience with our ME Direct Partner accounts. She has built a team to focus on professional Channel Management Programmes and initiatives to drive our Distribution Partners to increase their market coverage and margins”.
Says Podgornaya, “Most of us in the IT Channel understand that supply chain, credit lines, margins and grey marketing are key issues for our partners. My team’s focus is not only on improving these key aspects for our channel, but also introducing education programmes and business development opportunities. My team has Sania Shakil and Maria Al-Touq based in Dubai, with other team members based in Istanbul, Paris and Johannesburg”.
Relationships with the channel are the single most critical issue facing any vendor in emerging markets like Middle East & Africa, as one must have partners ready to assist End Users with their projects across such a broad geography. Explains Podgornaya, “Local knowledge and programmes are important and we need to be able to work with our European team-mates to localize EMEA wide programmes and processes. Channel Management is so much more than just running Volume Rebate Incentive Programmes. Our programmes are always based on Education first and foremost. We invest our channel funds into development of our partners. By this I don't just mean filling them with Product Knowledge, but also on areas such as Business and Management Skills development. Our pilot programme at TechData with Ian Fernandes brought fantastic improvements in both Sales Volumes and the all important Profit Margins for the channel."
APC’s Channel Sales re-organization is being matched by changes to the Field Sales operations. Says Hughes "APC made the positive decision to re-focus on our channel activities to allow us to work with partners on major projects. Simultaneously, many other changes are in process. Some of those improvements have given us major issues as we design new programmes to improve the technical and sales excellence of our in-country partners”.
“The work involved during this time has had some knock-on effects during the year. We have worked to improve our supply chain and logistics providers world wide which has been an issue here in MEA, but it should be back up to where we want it to be during November”.
“Regionally we have re-allocated some Field Sales roles into Engineering Support to better help our customers design DataCenter Solutions, but we will also be adding significant investments to our Dubai office in the very near future, and we intend to release those plans during GITEX 2006 (Hall 1; Booth B 45)”.
Hughes reveals that Dubai will be the focus of major investments by APC in the coming months. To begin with, APC intends to add to their local Engineering resources, expand their Logistics and Warehousing capabilities and include a Regional Technical Support and TeleSales operation.
“Middle East & Africa represents the best growth opportunity in the world for APC's InfraStruXureâ DataCenter solutions. We now need to make sure that our go-to market strategy and the capability of our channel partners is aligned” Hughes signs off.
About American Power Conversion
Founded in 1981, American Power Conversion (Nasdaq: APCC) (APC) is a leading provider of global, end-to-end solutions for real-time infrastructure. APC’s comprehensive products and services for home and corporate environments improve the availability, manageability and performance of sensitive electronic, network, communication and industrial equipment of all sizes. APC offers a wide variety of products for network-critical physical infrastructure including InfraStruXureâ, its revolutionary architecture for on-demand data centers, as well as physical threat management products through the company’s NetBotzâ division. These products and services help companies increase the availability and reliability of their IT systems. Headquartered in West Kingston, Rhode Island, APC reported sales of $2 billion for the year ended December 31, 2005, and is a Fortune 1000, Nasdaq 100 and S&P 500 Company.
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