BDL named as second USR distie

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Sumit Kumar, regional sales manager, US Robotics MENA

Networking vendor US Robotics has shaken up its channel in Saudi Arabia by announcing BDL as an official distribution partner in the Kingdom.

Sumit Kumar, regional sales manager at US Robotics MENA, believes the vendor will benefit from the distribution giant's bulging contact book of Saudi resellers. "They have a very strong team over at BDL," asserted Kumar. "One of the reasons we signed BDL was its extensive network of resellers. Our business has been growing in Saudi Arabia, and we thought it would be better for the whole market if we had one more distributor and BDL fulfilled all of our criteria," he added.

Although the company currently works with ICC in Saudi Arabia, USR decided the market would benefit from a further distribution alliance. "Saudi Arabia is a very important market for us. We have been working in Saudi for the last two years now with good results and demand for our product has been increasing. We think that the market has so much potential," said Kumar.

The appointment of BDL brings USR's number of distributors in Saudi to two. It used to work with AIM in the Kingdom but split with the company late last year. "They had their own view on the business," said Kumar of USR's previous partner. "But we agreed to go our separate ways and we shook hands. We had very great success with AIM but they said they would not be able to give full focus in the direction we required. So it was better for both of us to shake hands." At the time AIM was still carrying a quantity of the vendor's stock which BDL then decided to purchase.

According to US Robotics the partnership with BDL covers the company's entire range of products and should help it develop its brand within the SMB segment, the area of growth that Kumar anticipates will become very important in the coming months.

Meanwhile, the vendor has also found a replacement for VP of international sales and operations Peter Blampied, who recently quit his position at the vendor. Filling a similar role to Blampied will be Maurizio Negri the new sales director who boasts 10 years' previous experience at US Robotics. "He understands the business and most importantly he understands the partners and knows what the end-user wants," said Kumar regarding the new appointment.

Under the guidance of Kumar and Negri the Middle Eastern arm of US robotics has extensive plans to start the year with a series of channel seminars to boost the level of product knowledge distributors and resellers have of current offerings and products that are to see the light of day in 2008.

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