GEC NEWS WIREThere are a lot of mergers and acquisitions happening globally on regular basis but every mergers and acquisitions does not end up successfully due to the compatibility and cultural issues but as far as Arrow Electronics’ acquisition of Computerlinks is concerned, it does not look to have such issues as both the companies complement each other very well.
“Computerlinks shares Arrow’s commitment to value-added distribution to best support IT suppliers and solution providers, and it brings a strong team both within the executive suite and across the business. “
During the 2nd quarter of 2013, the news of Arrow Electronics acquiring Computerlinks at a cost around $317 million had taken every ICT aficionados aback reason being both the companies’ strength were in different things. When Arrow is focussed on electronics components Computerlinks was successful in IT distribution space. Therefore, there were concerns among the partners in the MEA region if Arrow can handle the product portfolio of Computerlinks rightly, if Arrow can maintain the vendor relationship properly and last but not the least if the parent company can engage the channel partners the way Computerlinks used to do. However, with the passing of time the perception kept on changing for better and the concerns fizzled out in to thin air. Today Arrow has positioned itself as super VAD in the region.
Arrow Electronics brings resources and strength of being part of a Fortune 150 companies and it is a $21 billion company that is committed to the IT channel.
Jean-Loup Desamaison-Cognet, Vice President for Central, Eastern Europe and Middle East/Africa/Asia-Pacific, Arrow, said, “This acquisition aligns with Arrow’s strategy to continue growing enterprise computing solutions while also expanding into new markets. Computerlinks shares Arrow’s commitment to value-added distribution to best support IT suppliers and solution providers, and it brings a strong team both within the executive suite and across the business. On a global scale, the addition of Computerlinks strengthens Arrow’s presence in the Middle East.”
From an offering perspective, Arrow fosters strong relationships with suppliers such as Checkpoint, IBM Security, McAfee, RSA, Infoblox, Gigamon, in the security segment and in infrastructure and networking segment with EMC, VCE, F5, Arista.
In the MEA region Arrow offers comprehensive solutions that Computerlinks was offering earlier addressing the emerging domains, ranging from systems/hardware to software/security, from storage/networking alongside services and training. Along with that Arrow offers all necessary services that a super VAD can offer.
Jean-Loup said, “We are able to advise our partners on best-of-breed technologies for cloud, virtualisation, Big Data and BYOD, from the leading vendors in these areas including EMC, VCE, Extreme Networks, F5, and RSA amongst others. These long-term vendor relationships mean that we have had staff experts in all of these domains for many years and have been certified to the highest levels to provide presales support to resellers and their customers. Their recent convergence into a “3rd Platform” has inspired us to spread these skills more widely across our teams to enable us to advise and support partners on combining solutions that will best address these and other opportunities.”
“We also provide total professional services to complement all our vendors including consulting, educational and support services enabling our customers to ensure they offer the best possible solutions to their end users. Complete consulting services from basic rack and stack to complete managed site deployments covering vendors such as EMC, RSA, F5, Q1, Checkpoint and throughout our vendor portfolio. Arrow believes in educating customers to maximise their investments; we are Authorised Training Centre for F5, RSA Q1Labs and Infoblox delivering certified training on all the vendors’ courses and modules. To further enhance our educational offering, Arrow has been awarded the contract to deliver IBM Education Services in the Middle East covering the majority of its courses,” he added.
Given the fact that MEA region has too many VADs offering similar kinds of services, however Arrow has a certain differentiation from others which include as following:
Fundamental elements, including data storage, servers, enterprise software, network, security, unified communications and virtualisation
Industry leading toolsets to foster confidence and agility to the channel and customers
Strong business alliances with the world’s leading IT vendors for innovative solutions
A whole business service model, from initial consultation, planning and design, through engineering build to implementation
White-labeled services to create brand awareness while reinforcing your customer relationships
Sales, marketing and business-building support, including go-to-market plans
Administration services, including integrated billing, metering and management of contracts with multiple service providers
Arrow serves as a supply channel partner for over 100,000 original equipment manufacturers, contract manufacturers and commercial customers through a global network of more than 460 locations in 58 countries. The company has 16,500 employees worldwide. Arrow has offices in Dubai in the Middle East and five offices across India, Singapore and Australia.
According to IDC report, Saudi Arabia’s IT market is the largest in the Middle East and will remain so in next few years. To extend its service offerings, Arrow wants to expand its coverage and capture the growth opportunities in the Gulf. Jean-Loup added, “We plan to establish a new office in Saudi Arabia which is expected in operation Q2 2015.”
From the channel strategy perspective, Arrow has a comprehensive portfolio of products, software and services, which enable the VAD to offer its partners complete solutions that fulfils the requirements of their customers. Jean-Loup commented, “We complement our established, Tier-1 vendors with emerging vendors and technologies to ensure that we are always at the leading edge. We support our partners commercially and technically to make markets for these solutions. As a Value Added Distributor we work as an extension of our vendors and provide sales enablement tools and marketing resources. Our staff is all trained and certified to the highest levels and operate as trusted advisors to our resellers.”
Arrow has an extensive program of training and enablement that are offered to our partners to prepare them to extend Arrow solutions to their end customers. On various avenues Arrow works with them to create demand, supporting them commercially and with marketing campaigns. One of the exemplary initiatives that the company had set by participating in Gitex 2014, Dubai, where the company had a large double decker stall in order to accommodate all its technology partners with dedicated kiosks. The brands the company had displayed prominently included EMC, Extreme Networks, RSA Security, F5, Firemon, Gigamon, Skybox, VCE, Websense, Trend Micro, McAfee and Infoblox.
Finally…
With the resources strength and deep pocket of Arrow, the operation of Computerlinks is certainly in the better hands now. The partners who were feeling a little dizzy about this relationship should be assured of the fact that Arrow is a much larger company therefore they would get better services.
