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Synnex expands amid birthday celebrations
Wed, 18th Sep 2013
FYI, this story is more than a year old

In many Asian cultures the number eight is regarded as highly auspicious so it's somewhat appropriate that Synnex New Zealand's eighth birthday has been marked by awards and expansion.

The company has extended its team to Wellington and Christchurch, providing resellers in those regions with a local point of contact.

It's all part of Synnex New Zealand country manager Richard Harri's focus on being a company with a global footprint and the power to execute locally.

Initially set up to provide components such as CPUs, motherboards, hard drives and graphics cards to the then burgeoning local market of system builders, Synnex has rapidly evolved.

Its success in selling to the systems builders saw it become 'the bundle king' as other brands wanting to reach into that market and get room on the shelves turned to the local distributor for help.

Synnex offered 'seeding campaigns' wrapping together peripherals such as printers or monitors with components on a single code.

On the back of that, Synnex's agencies grew from brands like Asus, Intel, Western Digital and Kingston Memory to include the likes of Dlink, Netgear and Targus.

Today, the distributor's range covers 24 vendors, and Harri says the company does a lot more ready made systems, in keeping with the changing market.

Last year the company was appointed as the Kiwi distributor for Microsoft's Surface and is also handling the Xbox. “We're very excited about the Xbox One's 22 November launch. It will no longer be just a gaming machine, but the centre of the connected living room and that will open up a lot of opportunities for us and our resellers.”

Recently the company took honours as Lenovo's Most Innovative Partner of the Year for Australia and New Zealand, adding to last year's glory when Intel crowned the company winner of the most innovative marketing campaign in Asia Pacific.

Harri is particularly proud of those two awards. “Both awards concrete in my mind that we are more than just box moving. We are adding value to our vendors through innovative campaigns.

“We're not just pushing product around with a stick. We're performing some of the services and functions a local office for the vendor would.”

Those campaigns have also been winners for resellers, with the promotions geared towards giving resellers 'an experience they can take to the grave', such as diving with sharks or the most recent offering of going gliding, rather than simply financial or product incentives.

“We really focus on people,” Harri says. “Whether that's within Synnex with our own staff – because they're our greatest asset – or with the suppliers, helping them realise their goals; or with the resellers understanding what they're trying to take to market, providing timely service, competitive pricing and knowledgeable staff.”

He's coy about the year ahead, saying only “We're going to stick to our knitting”.

The company's 2012 financials saw year on year growth in both revenue – up 35% to $66,610,758 – and profit, which was up 18% to $953,373.

Harri says with a smile: “This year is looking ok.”