Technology Reseller - v25

technolog y reseller.co.uk NEWS: DISTRIBUTORS 07 Pragma extends marketing support Pragma, UK distributor for Ericsson-LG, is working with specialist marketing management consultancy Think Beyond to provide its channel partners with extended marketing support, including analysis of current marketing activities, strategies and systems. Will Morey, Sales and Marketing Director of Pragma, said: “This collaboration will broaden Pragma’s marketing support capabilities and enable us to provide partners with strategic marketing support in addition to the assistance we provide with collateral, webinars, events and digital marketing.” As part of the partnership, Pragma and Think Beyond are producing a series of guides covering topics such as marketing automation, lead nurturing, marketing strategies and setting marketing KPIs. The guides will be available for download from Pragma’s website over the coming months. ArrowSphere enhanced Arrow Electronics has enhanced its multi-tier cloud platform, ArrowSphere, which it developed more than eight years ago to provide a single place where channel customers can access its suppliers’ products and build solutions for customers. Enhancements designed to make it easier for channel customers to create tailored, multi-vendor solutions for their clients include a catalogue of more than 25,000 offers worldwide; an AI-enabled search bar for managing subscriptions, with intelligent catalogue filtering and visualisation of the most popular offers by region; and a recommendation engine that displays complementary offers for building cloud solutions. fiveyearsout.com CMS strengthens presence in France Value-added distributor CMS Distribution is expanding its presence in the French market with the acquisition of Avesta, a specialist distributor of mobile solutions and high-tech products based on the outskirts of Paris. The addition of Avesta and its 32 employees increases CMS Distribution’s head count to more than 400 across 12 locations in the UK, Ireland, France, Spain, Benelux, Scandinavia, Australia, China and USA. Frank Salmon, Founder and CEO of CMS Distribution, said: “We are delighted to welcome Avesta to the group. Going forward, our French customers will gain access to an increased product portfolio, additional sales and marketing resources and more competitive offerings.” CMS Distribution will continue to run the business under the Avesta name, with the same leadership and management team. www.cmsdistribution.com Nimans highlights opportunities in IP security Nimans is encouraging resellers to enter the IP security market and capitalise on a multi-billion-pound market that is set to double in value over the next five years. Camilla Kirkham, Director of Sales in the distributor’s new security and AV division, said: “There are many lucrative reasons why resellers should enter the security market with Nimans: security is a natural extension of their existing IP skills and endpoint sales; it’s a growing market – both in times of recession when crime increases and in periods of economic growth; it’s a diverse and dynamic sector with many different solutions, such as health and safety, market analysis for retail, staff trends, heatmaps and preventative equipment monitoring; and there are lots of opportunities from innovation and evolution of technologies such as AV and access control, as well as traditional cameras.” She added: “Working with big name brands, our highly experienced team is ideally placed to help resellers take advantage of the huge and lucrative opportunities available. It’s a £3bn market that is set to double in value over the next five years.” Instant results for Exertis e-marketing tool Following successful trials with 100 customers, Exertis is extending an email marketing tool provided through InControl Marketing to all resellers. Each managed campaign consists of a pre-prepared e-shot and a landing page that can be personalised with a reseller’s branding. Resellers obtain a full preview of the campaign and click through and open rate reporting. Rob Fitzsimons, Exertis head of UK marketing, said: “This is a low cost, highly efficient way for our resellers to generate leads for their business. We have received great support from our vendors, enabling us to prepare a number of compelling messages, offers and promotions that our resellers can choose to take advantage of to generate their own marketing campaigns. Our aim is to provide a constant flow of high-quality content that can be deployed by our customers and targeted at their end users.” Themis Hemley, a director of Border Office Supplies & Systems (BOSS), has already used the tool to take a ‘make the shift’ campaign to customers and prospects. He said: “Whilst a proportion of our customers were aware of the move towards Windows 10, the campaign has created a sense of urgency and positioned BOSS as the specialist, local business able to offer advice and solutions. This has created a significant uplift in sales. To date, we’ve generated in excess of £75,000 incremental sales as a direct result of the campaigns, supplying over 120 new PCs and laptops across multiple brands, as well as related sales on software and services.” Midwich cleans up Following the launch of Midwich’s Corporate and Social Responsibility (CSR) programme, a team of 12 volunteers from the distributor took to the streets of Diss, Norfolk armed with high vis jackets, rubbish bags, protective gloves and litter pickers. Collectively, they walked 74,000 steps and collected eight full bags of rubbish weighing 22kg. Midwich litter-pickers (right to left): Carla Shipp, Sophie Taylor, Craig Morrison, Tracey Perkins, Heidi Lucas, Tracey Spillings, Joseph Boom, Justine Klinefelter, Conor Edgely, Amber Blandford, Harry Timson and Kaylee Andrews.