Aptec - Excellence in Distribution

Aptec launches NetApp Channel Bonanza in the Middle East.

Dubai, UAE, 29th December 2011 - Aptec Distribution, the Middle East IT Distribution giant, has launched a channel blitzkrieg across GCC promoting one of its key vendors, NetApp. Primarily to endorse and launch NetApp’s new MSE (Mid-Sized Enterprise) offerings, roadshows were held in UAE, Oman, Kuwait and Qatar over the last few weeks. Attended by nearly 200 participants from around 93 channel partners across the 4 countries, it represented a strong push by Global IT Storage leader, NetApp, to capture the MSE marketshare in the MENA region. These exclusive events saw 4 lucky winners walk away with 42 inch LED TV’s as part of the lucky draw held at the end of each roadshow.

Govind Haridas, Business Unit Manager – Security & Storage at Aptec, remarked: “Traditional areas of engagement in the IT business like infrastructure, networking are not lucrative to the channel anymore given the low returns and high competition. Resellers and SI’s need to complement their offerings with security & storage solutions. Apart from adding value to their customers, they increase their returns significantly and have less competition. What Aptec is offering to its partners is to engage with us and get our assistance at every stage of the sales process right from training partners’ team, to meeting the end customer along with partners, proposing the solutions, conducting PoC’s, helping close the deal and finally delivering and supporting the engagement. Aptec and NetApp conceived and launched a lucrative MSE Channel program to address the storage opportunity and increase the marketshare. Rewards have been announced for certification, pipeline creation, deal closure, and most importantly we have included in the reward bonanza the very critical player in the sales process – the End Customer. We have announced premium gifts like Blackberry Bold’s and Ipad2’s to the end customer for purchasing any NetApp solution within select promo bundles. We believe this will generate a lot of interest and leads in the market and this promotion is currently available only through Aptec”.

Daniel Nargunam, Regional Product Manager – NetApp in Aptec Distribution, had this to say: “NetApp is a Global leader in this space as 10,000 midsized businesses turn to NetApp each year for their storage needs. This is evidenced by the latest Gartner Magic Quadrant where NetApp is a clear Leader. In recessionary times such as these, NetApp is the leading unified solution in the market providing the highest ROI & TCO and the MSE price point is very aggressive and lucrative for the customer to ignore. NetApp Middle East is a 100% channel driven business and hence we have a lot of synergy with our vendor and we act as its extended arm in the market. NetApp has engaged closely with Aptec for this MSE initiative as the company believes Aptec has a lot of strength in this space. We are already witnessing an increase in the sales momentum which we believe is a positive reaction from the market to our program”

Bahaa Salah, Managing Director of Aptec Distribution, said: “Aptec represents over 30 global vendors in the region and over the past few years we have observed that enterprise IT budgets are being slashed drastically and IT purchase decisions are being postponed. So while we continued to service the Enterprise sector we also decided to focus largely on growing the run rate business from the SME / MSE space. Apart from ensuring linearity, it has also helped us to add value to the channel as a true Value Added Distributor since we have inhouse pre-sales, PoC and post-sales skills to help serve this segment.”

Roadshows in Egypt, Lebanon and Jordan are being planned in the next phase.

About APTEC
Aptec Holdings (www.apteconline.com) is the Middle East, Turkey & North Africa’s largest technology distributor and a leading technology sales, marketing and logistics company. As a vital link in the technology value chain, Aptec creates sales and profitability opportunities for vendors and resellers through unique marketing programs, logistics services, technical support, financial services and product aggregation and distribution. The company offers a wide range of solutions and services to more than 10,000 resellers and offers thousands of products from leading IT and Telecommunications manufacturers. From its offices and warehouses in 11 countries, including UAE, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Lebanon, Turkey, Kuwait, Pakistan and with more than 650 specialized staff, Aptec serves over 25 countries.

For More Information please contact:
Svetlana Sorokina / Regional Marketing Manager / Tel: +9714 3697 111 / Mob: +97150 4503894
Email: svetlanas@aptecme.com