Kemp Looks To Grow Canadian Presence with Synnex Deal

Philippe Babin, Canadian account manager, Kemp Technology

Philippe Babin, Canadian account manager, Kemp Technology

For the last couple of years, load-balancing appliance vendor Kemp Technologies has been quietly building its business in Canada, starting from a very small base, but growing at 200 percent or higher for the last two years.

Now it’s looking to turn up the volume, both literally and figuratively. Along with a new account manager, added to run the Canadian operation late last year, the company has signed on with Synnex as its Canadian distributor, and is looking to the distributor to help it continue – and accelerate – growth in the Canadian market.

There are two main goals of the partnership. First, the company wants to speed product deliver to its existing customer base, and will now shift all of its product orders to the distributor to allow quicker response and distribution functions like drop-shipping to customers. And secondly, it’s looking to grow its channel, particularly with larger resellers, said Canadian account manager Philippe Babin.

“They’re already work with, and making progress with, some of the biggest resellers in the country, and we’re looking at getting more presence in the government business as well,” Babin said.

Although formally announced this week, the companies have been working together since very early this year, and Babin offers high praise to the distributor’s approach, particularly its ability to retain boutique-style relationships despite being a very large organization.

“I see the kinds of activities that I normally don’t see with many of the large distributors,” Babin said. “They have people who understand the product and look for opportunity with complementary technologies.”

Babin’s plan for the year calls for 2.5x last year’s sales, and getting the distributor up and running, and bringing on some new partners it key to that happening. The company currently has about 75 resellers in Canada, with about 25 at the scond-tier Authorized level. Babin said the company has good coast-to-coast coverage in the channel, aside from Newfoundland, but that he expects that partner base to grow by at least 30 to 40 percent over the course of 2013.

Along with the large reseller focus, the company is looking for a variety of partner types, particularly those with system or network integration practices, as well as partners with businesses building Web services and Web infrastructure. Another target market is the provider of hosted applications to SMB customers.