Expanding Westcon NZ seeks quality over quantity...

For Managing Director Dave Rosenberg, quality over quantity is the key to channel success for Westcon Group New Zealand.

Over the past few years Rosenberg has been adhering to the distributor’s clear and consistent vision of consolidating its vendors and simplifying business.

He remains steadfast in his belief that “doing more with less” is the only option in the pursuit for market excellence while providing an environment to work with adjacent and emerging technology vendors to create an ecosystem around these core vendors.

“We want to ensure the current partners that we do business with in New Zealand receive an exceptional level of service,” says Rosenberg, who is placing the company’s resources into a concentrated pool of key partnerships and strategies.

After dropping from 66 vendors to 40, Westcon now has 57 vendors on its books across New Zealand, 17 of which are cloud service vendors.

“We’re placing all of our resources into helping these vendors succeed in the market,” he adds.

As is commonplace in business, Rosenberg is open enough to admit some vendor relationships were simply not profitable for the company, through no fault of either party – merely a relevance, focus or resource issue.

“We’ve exited a few partnerships very amicably during the past few months and there hasn’t been much market noise about it as we’ve went about it the right way,” he says.

“Although we don’t have any current plans in plan in place, we may exit more in the future or alternatively add a few, but what is certain is that we’re clear in where we are at and where we want to go in terms of our business strategy.”

Solid foundations…

Rosenberg has steered the Westcon ship to success in two major markets, claiming both the IBM distributor of the year in NZ and Symantec ANZ Distributor of the Year awards this year.

A raft of deals with leading VoIP provider AudioCodes, Juniper Networks,Symantec Aruba Networks and sole RSA distribution has helped further cement the company’s growth within the Kiwi channel.

“It’s been a big year for us in terms of what we have achieved in the market,” Rosenberg adds.

“Following the RSA deal we currently have eight exclusive agencies within our business, which is testament to the exceptional team we have in New Zealand.

“And of course, it’s always great to do well across the Tasman against our Australian friends.”

Channel thanks...

Rosenberg was also quick to praise the channel community as a collective, with the company pleased to announce that this week they reached the $20,000 goal for the Van Blerk family and their assistance dog for Melissa.

The daughter of Dries van Blerk, Westcon Group NZ technical quote specialist, Melissa’s campaign has touched many at the company, leading to a nationwide appeal for help.

“This goal was achieved in less than a month and we would like to thank everybody for their generosity,” he adds.

“An outstanding effort to make a difference and help bring awareness to diabetes and assistance dogs.”