Jordanian channel gets tactical

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Khaldoun Borini, ISS.

Resellers in the Jordanian market are going through something of a transition period as they dilute their emphasis on product sales in favour of cultivating a comprehensive value added services offering.

Stirred by the growth of the local IT sector and frustrated by the decline of hardware margins, many dealers are striving to identify new revenue streams that will guarantee a stronger level of sustainability.

This shift in direction has been quickly seized upon by vendors and distributors eager to ensure that the growing throng of local VARs receive the support they require.

"The reseller market has developed considerably in the past couple of years as the resellers' focus has expanded from mere product sales to value added concentration," remarked Michael Papaeracleous, executive director of distribution at Cisco specialist Logicom, which has had a local presence in Amman for the past seven years. "This is in addition to new products being adopted by the resellers and developed in the market," he said.

For some, the advancement of the Jordanian channel was always inevitable given investments by manufacturers to empower local trading partners.

"The reseller market in Jordan is quite developed, especially for major vendors whose early initiatives and market organisation have paid off recently," commented Mohammad Dahleh, general manager at Acer, Microsoft and HP reseller Scientific for Computers and Systems (SCS).

"While many resellers rely on product sales, most of them have reached the conclusion that there is no money in moving boxes and that professional services is the way to drive margins and move forward."

One company which is ideally placed to endorse that observation is HP consumables reseller Integrated Standard Solutions (ISS). It estimates that the Jordanian market has consistently expanded at a rate of 20% during each of the last five years, and in 2007 the firm launched a professional services division in an effort to target value sales.

ISS' general manager Khaldoun Borini admits the Jordanian channel landscape now contains several established enterprise names with solid integration and services capabilities.

"The reseller market in Jordan has seen major changes in the last couple of years," he reflected. "You now see large solution providers such as STS and E-STARTA, as well as many value added resellers like SMS and CCS."

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