LaCie shows Middle East pedigree

French hard drive vendor LaCie is opening a Middle East office to provide enhanced support to its partners and customers in the region.

The facility, which will be located in Dubai Airport Free Zone, will consist of sales, channel management, marketing, customer support, Return Merchandising Authorisation (RMA) support and warranty support units. The vendor will also open a stocking facility in the Free Zone, from where it will cater to markets abroad.

"We previously served the region indirectly, but now we want to show that we are very much committed and are right here," said Rajeev Mukul, vice president sales, Asia and Middle East (pictured). "It was a very obvious decision from a LaCie corporation point of view. The markets in the Middle East, especially the GCC countries, have become quite mature for our range of products. Last year there had continuously been a very big improvement in terms of quality of demand, and we felt the timing was right for us to be here and to be in tune with the development of the retail sector in the Middle East," he added.

LaCie is expecting to have the facility operational by mid-September and will appoint a general manager to spearhead the operation, who will report directly to Mukul. The vendor also revealed that further key staff have already been shortlisted and will be announced next month.

"We thought it would be better to become closer to retailers rather than to just leave it to distributors. We need to be very close to the market and that's the reason we're coming to the Middle East. We will expand our reach from here month by month," Mukul added.

Established in France, LaCie currently has regional headquarters across Europe, USA, Canada, Japan, Australia, Singapore and Hong Kong.

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