Tony McNish,
Avnet Technology Solutions, a solutions distribution leader and an operating group of Avnet, has launched a UK programme to provide business partners with practical hands-on training on the latest Avaya ethernet switching products. Building on Avnet’s extensive experience in data solutions, the Data Seed Unit Programme is designed to build awareness and confidence amongst new and existing Avaya business partners to enable them to add value to their customers through integrated voice, data and video solutions.
Tony McNish, Avaya business manager at Avnet Technology Solutions UK, explained, “Avaya’s portfolio of data products enable enterprises to build solutions that are always on, providing up to seven times better resiliency with up to 40 percent more energy efficiency. In our experience, business partners often benefit from time to get to know the products, so they get to thoroughly understand them and are able to cross-skill their engineers in their own environment. The Data Seed Unit Programme means that Avnet will deliver the most up-to-date Avaya ethernet switching appliances to the business partner and provide on-site training and interoperability advice before leaving the equipment with them for up to two weeks. This means partners can become fully conversant with the technology and confident of its abilities before recommending it to customers, therefore truly adding value to converged sales.”
The new product awareness programme is further supported by accreditation boot camps for Avaya data portfolio engineers by way of a series of courses including skills-conversion for engineers with traditional expertise in Extreme, Cisco and other suppliers. Avnet also provides pre-sales technical support until business partners feel confident enough to take over this responsibility.
McNish continued, “There are distinct benefits to business partners with the skills to deliver a combined Avaya voice and data infrastructure. Competitive pricing across the entire product range helps protect margins and maximise profit while providing an opportunity to deliver first class customer service. Avnet account managers will also work with business partners on the sales and marketing elements of business plans to support their efforts. This includes driving demand generation activities to deliver sales opportunities to the partners from day one.”
Tony Burrows, UK sales lead for data at Avaya, concluded, “Avnet has a strong understanding of the specific requirements of selling data networks into the channel. Avnet’s new programme will enable partners to transfer their skills easily from competing technologies to the Avaya data portfolio. As we continue to expand Avaya’s data portfolio over the coming months, this programme will allow partners to adopt new products without incurring additional costs in training key engineering resources, allowing them to maximise their return on investment.”
The Data Seed Unit Programme is available now for business partners who would like to take advantage of on-site training and have use of Avaya’s ethernet switching products as part of the Avnet education process.
As a global solutions distributor, Avnet Technology Solutions collaborates with its customers and suppliers to create and deliver effective solutions that address the business challenges of their end-user customers locally and around the world. For fiscal year 2010, the group served customers in more than 30 countries and generated US $ 8.19 billion in annual revenue. Avnet Technology Solutions is an operating group of Avnet,
Avnet, Inc. a Fortune 500 company, is one of the largest distributors of electronic components, computer products and embedded technology serving customers in more than 70 countries worldwide. Avnet accelerates its partners' success by connecting the world's leading technology suppliers with a broad base of more than 100,000 customers by providing cost-effective, value-added services and solutions. For the fiscal year ended July 3, 2010, Avnet generated revenue of $19.16 billion. For more information, visit www.avnet.com (AVT_IR)
Bracknell, UK – 23 May 2011 –