The move of the distributor’s facilities from Montreal to a facility of double the size in the Greater Toronto Area will enable more Canadian integration work, better SLAs for more customers, and improved co-ordination with the U.S. distribution facility in Indianapolis.
Toronto-based distributor Gentek has announced three new vendor relationships. They now carry 3CX phone systems, Patton SmartNode gateways, and VTech’s SIP-based commercial phone offerings.
Mo Nezarati, the founder and CEO of Richmond Hill ON-based Esna, which Avaya acquired last year, has been named the GM of Zang, which was created as a separate company because its business model is radically different from Avaya’s. There will be channel opportunities though, and Zang is developing a channel program.
Avaya’s program changes give more partners ways to make more money, but also step up the requirement to have happy, satisfied customers.
The new HYBRID Sites complete the integration of ShoreTel’s cloud and on-prem solutions which began with the new ShoreTel Connect branding last year. They improve partners’ selling ability with the single solution, and its suitability for larger deployments.
Both Powered by Avaya IP Office and OnAvaya – Google Cloud Platform have already been available to customers through the channel. Now however, their availability has been opened up to more partners, and both solutions have also been enhanced from their initial versions.
ChannelBuzz has learned that Walter Andri, who has been President and Managing Director at Avaya Canada, is leaving the company. Andri, who had been senior vice president of sales at Primus Telecommunications Canada, joined Avaya a little under a year ago, in late February 2015. His telco background made him highly attractive to Avaya, which…
Ottawa’s Combat Networks won the Networking Partner of the Year award from Avaya. The solution provider, which has a deep Avaya practice, also listened closely to the details about Avaya’s strategy and approach going forward.
After a long restructuring, Avaya now has its two core next-gen offerings available, and has a systematic and well thought out plan to take them to market, leveraging both its channel and internal resources better than in the past. They still have to execute on these better than in the past however.
While Avaya is not contemplating adding or dropping any distribution partners, it is working on restructuring their compensation model, to encourage them to fulfil the role Avaya wants them to play in their new go-to-market strategy.
Enhancements to Avaya’s program are intended to be non-disruptive while also allowing more rewards to be targeted to strategic areas. The company also pledged to be a better partner than it has been in the past.
Avaya has reorganized its marketing strategies to emphasize joint go-to-marketing initiatives with partners, with an emphasis on obtaining case studies for customers.
Santiago Aguirre, who adds Canada to his Caribbean and Latin American responsibilities, says this will leverage regional strength to strengthen Avaya in Canada, and that he won’t be disrupting Auld’s work in Canada.
Westcon’s Comstor group teams with Polycom to offer cloud-based video-as-a-service that solution providers can offer under its GoldSeal services label.
RingCentral already has a diverse go-to-market strategy which includes several top technology distributors, but they see additional benefits in adding Westcon to the mix.
Avaya recently introduced its new Avaya Midmarket Select Program. But the program itself is only part of the company’s strategy to significantly increase its presence in the mid-market space in Canada.
The mid-market is the key area of focus for Avaya Canada’s channel this year, but networking, cloud and video are also on the priority list.
The Avaya Midmarket Select Program is focused on a select number of partners, and lets them allow rock bottom pricing in packages designed to facilitate solution sales. Avaya Canada’s key role in the program’s development has resulted in six of the 40 partners in the global program being Canadian.
The new program is also much simpler than the old, with the number of tiers cut by almost two thirds. The cloud changes won’t impact Canada though – the cloud product still isn’t available here. Canadian partners will find opportunity registration and training changes interesting however.
Sennheiser, best known for its premium consumer products, already has a strong distribution network in Canada, but adds two more distributors to generate more opportunities and stimulate even greater awareness of its presence in the commercial space.
