Marketing Matters For April 2010 - The "4C's" and a Global Perspective

Posted by paulguglichjr Apr 16, 2010

Welcome Bob,
Here's the April 16, 2010 edition of Marketing Matters. We hope you enjoy this service and as always, we look forward to your Feedback and Suggestions.

#The “4C’s” and a Global Perspective

Last month, you heard about our new global Corporate Identity guidelines, and the GL codes that will help us better track marketing allocation and spend. In this month's Marketing Matters, Bob discusses FY11 Marketing Plans in context of the "4C's" Framework. All of our Marketing executions in FY11 will be tied to these four goals:

Communication
Collaboration
Consistency
Commitment

Bob will also share his observations from recent visits to Australia, Singapore, the U.K., and Netherlands. Each of these Westcon/Comstor offices, as well as many others, are doing some amazing things, whether it be empowering employees as "brand ambassadors", building stronger relationships with our partners, implementing innovative practices, focusing on our vendors as "our customer", achieving superior sales performance while expanding into new markets, and implementing new practices like reverse logistics in Houten and Quick-e-Quote in Sydney.

In next month's Marketing Matters, you'll hear about Marketing Maps and Voice-of-the-Customer surveys. Marketing Maps is a framework that focuses on improving alignment between Sales, Marketing, and our Vendors. Voice-of-the-Customer surveys are a standardized, global feedback process that provides insight on our performance, as well as looking for ways to continuously improve our customer interactions and business model.

Lead Story

#Our Brand in Action
L

ast month the new Westcon and Comstor Corporate Identity guidelines were released, and this month, the Houten, Netherlands office "swung" into action by hoisting the new Comstor logo atop their building.

The new, energy saving, Comstor logo is now on the roof of our office building in Houten, Netherlands. Check out the following video which filmed the construction crew as the logo was being hoisted to the roof. For those of you who have been to Houten, you know that the building is right next to a very busy highway so it has a lot of views from bypassing traffic every day. Talk about our brand in action!

Watch the Full Video On Youtube

#Bill Hurley Gets Social

For those of you who haven't seen it yet, Bill Hurley, our Westcon Group CTO hosts a blog where he posts his insights, observations and recommendations on important issues facing business & technology leaders. The goal of his blog is to keep our partners, customers and employees informed of the issues that business leaders face today. Feel free to post your opinion on any of these topics.

While Bill generally posts a new topic every Sunday, his post from last week is particularly relevant to those of us who are marketers. Titled "Needs Based Segmentation", it stresses the importance of truly understanding your customer's needs, and how this understanding can help define and drive messaging.
A Must Read!

Follow all of Bill's blog posts by going to http://westconcto.wordpress.com/ where he covers a variety of topics including:

* Cloud Computing
* Data Center
* Security
* Selling into IT
* Unified Communications
* Virtualization

Also follow Bill on Twitter at http://twitter.com/WestconCTO

#Implementing Reverse Logistics in Houten

We opened a new warehouse facility in Houten, Netherlands, in 2007 to perform Reverse Logistics and Value Added Services for our customers.

Logistics Services are part of the core business associated with the collection and return of customers used or end of life equipment for re-use, trade-in, re-cycle, refurbish and or re-marketing. However, these Logistics Services have remained unknown to most of our sales teams and also to most of our customers.

We are working to create some marketing material such as: a movie, brochure, customer testimonials, banners on the websites and mailers. We would be very happy if the sales teams would like to visit us in Houten so we can show them the work we are doing for our customers. Specific value added service offerings include:

Advanced pre-staging and soak testing of new equipment.
Pre-configuration of routers, switches, security and storage appliances.
Drop-shipment, customised labeling and documentation.
Packaging, box and labour provisioning.
Global Customer RMA Collection service.
Product screening to determine equipment serviceability.
De-bundling and De-staging services for the removal of software, memory and Integrated components.
Minor repairs and refurbishment.
Vendor trade-in.
Recycling and disposal.

For more information contact Amanda Long: Amanda.Long@westcongroup.com

#Quick-e-Qoute in Sydney

Quick-e-Quote is an easy to use, email based valid quotation service which provides instantaneous customised pricing to all our customers 24x7.

When a client emails Quick-e-Quote we recognise the senders email address from our e-Commerce portal and locate the account number for their trading account. The pricing is sourced from our downloadable pricelists which is maintained by our ERP (advanced pricing module) so it delivers customised best price information, real-time stock availability and ETAs.

This service is free for our reseller partners and complements our existing pricing resources i.e. presales quote team, e-Commerce portal, downloadable pricelist.

Quick-e-Quote is an easy 3 step process. Informaton on how it works is available at:

http://www.westcongroup.com.au/Ordering/Quick-e-Quote.asp?objid=2956

Future releases of this system will include automatic mandatory and suggestive attachment of complementary products i.e. Vendor and / or Westcon Group services.

For more information contact: Bernadette Jenkinson at Bernadette.Jenkinson@westcongroup.com.au

#Imagine Event Roadshow Wraps Up Another Year In Australia

What a brilliant way to wrap up the Imagine Roadshow with close to 300 people through the door in Melbourne.

Thank you to the entire business for your support, physical involvement and joint promotion of this event. I don’t believe there is a single person in the company who has not touched the event in some way and contributed to its outstanding success. This is a true endorsement of what our business is capable of as individuals and a team. In total we collected data on close to 1100 registered attendees.

The Imagine Roadshow has acted as an excellent vehicle to position Westcon Group as a true thought leader and quality advisory for Converged Networking Security and Storage technologies. In addition this we have achieved a number of key objectives which the marketing and product management teams will leverage to help increase sales and new opportunities. Imagine Roadshow Website

Key Objectives for Imagine

Showcase our Vendor Partners and technologies
Increase Westcon Group Brand Awareness
Promote Westcon Group as a business and technology thought leader and advisor
Lead Generation - reseller and enduser
Customer Profiling and prospect identification

For more information on the event contact:
Melita Powys at Melita.Powys@westcongroup.com.au

We hope you have found this edition of Marketing Matters helpful. As always, we welcome Feedback and suggestions.

Until next time...

The Westcon Group Marketing Matters Team

Westcon and Westcon Group are registered trademarks and trademarks of Westcon Group, Inc.
Copyright © 2010 Westcon Group, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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Westcon Group Captures Avaya EMEA Distributor of the Year - 9/19/08

Posted by paulguglichjr Sep 19, 2008

Westcon Group Captures Avaya EMEA Distributor of the Year

Last week we received some very good news from Avaya, having been selected as its EMEA Distributor of the Year (please see press release below). This would of course be welcome news in and of itself, but it is an even greater achievement when you consider that Westcon (and its acquired companies) has achieved this distinction no less than FIVE YEARS IN A ROW. Congratulations to the entire Westcon Convergence team on a job well done. Please take a moment to listen to David Grant (pictured), Vice President of Westcon Convergence, UK and Scandics, speak about this accomplishment.

LISTEN TO AUDIO CLIP

The Online Version of the Cisco Solutions Handbook is Here!

If you haven't seen Westcon's new Cisco Solutions Handbook, take a look by clicking here. This book is now available wherever we sell Cisco products around the world and has had nothing short of a fabulous response by resellers. Some of the reasons for this are:

It includes the latest Cisco product catalog
It contains detailed information on the products of complementary vendors
It articulates how customers can leverage Westcon's value throughout each stage of the sales cycle

Press Release: Westcon Group is Chosen as Avaya’s EMEA Distributor of the Year for Fifth Consecutive Year (17 September 2008)

Burgess Hill, UK, 17 September 2008 - Westcon Group, Inc., a leading specialty distributor in networking, convergence, security and mobility, announced that its Westcon Convergence business has won Avaya’s EMEA Distributor of the Year Award for International Business Development. The award was accepted by Barry Shakespeare, Executive Vice President of Westcon Group Europe, during the Avaya EMEA conference in Madrid last week.



SPECIAL EDITION: Westcon Group Communities Recently you have received communications from Duncan Potter (both email and through Marketing Matters) on our new Westcon Group Community. To help employees learn more about this exciting new tool, which has tremendous potential for us both internally and externally, we have created a series of training modules designed to make your experience of entering and contributing to the Westcon Group Communities more seamless. These training modules will be featured in future Marketing Matters and also archived in the community. The first module describes the process of accessing and logging in (click on video icon below), and next week's module will cover navigating and accessing content. If you have any questions or have difficulty accessing the communities meanwhile, please contact WATCH VIDEO

Our Community Learning Center and Getting Started Once you have successfully logged in to the Westcon Group Community, your first stop should be the Community Learning Center* where there are plenty of documents and tutorials you can access including a valuable document *about getting started*. The Community Learning Center (which you can contribute to....) will help you begin to understand how the community works and how you can learn to become a key contributor.



The Advantage of Being a Global Player As a multi-national distributor, Westcon Group has advantages over its competitors on several fronts--in the way we share information and best practices as an organization, in the way we leverage our vendor relationships across multiple geographies, and in the way help customers of all sizes compete in different parts of the globe. Please take a moment to watch our President and CEO, Tom Dolan, further describe the importance of this.

Establishing Credibility in the First Sales Meeting Some Marketing Matters segments bear repeating--we pulled this one from March because it has so much relevance to our interaction with customers. How do you establish credibility in the first few minutes of that all important meeting? You must have a command of the market, solutions sets and tools, says Chief Marketing Officer, Duncan Potter.... take a look]

Network Security Handbook is now available! As referenced in the press release below, Westcon has unveiled the premiere edition of its Network Security Handbook a comprehensive guide for resellers selling security solutions. Take a look at the interactive PDF version included here--which is also available on the SecurityPoint solutions site and get in touch with Michaela Arany-Bibby, Westcon Group's Director of Marketing Operations, for more information. Launch PDF

Press Release: Westcon Announces Global “Network Security Handbook,” Comprehensive Desktop Resource for Resellers Selling Security Solutions (29 May 2008) Tarrytown, NY, June 29, 2008 - Westcon Group, Inc., the leading specialty distributor in networking, convergence, security and mobility, announced the premiere edition of the “Westcon Group Network Security Solutions Handbook,” a highly informative desk reference aimed at resellers selling security solutions. Read More...

CRN (NL): Comstor start Technology Fundamentals trainingen (29 May 2008) Distributeur Comstor, onderdeel van Weston en specialist in Cisco oplossingen, zoals netwerken, convergentie, security en mobility, start vanaf 1 augustus voor zijn resellers de Technology Fundamentals trainingen. Ook Westcon Convergence start binnenkort trainingen voor zijn resellers, zoals van Avaya, Nortel en 3Com. Read Article.
CRN (NL): Samenwerking SonicWALL en Westcon Security (27 May 2008) De samenwerking omvat de distributie door Westcon van alle beveiligings-oplossingen van SonicWALL - van KMOs tot multinationals - in de Benelux. De productportfolio omvat mailbeveiligingen, UTM, opslag, beveiliging voor toegang van op afstand, etc. Read Article.
Reseller Web (BR): Depois de Cisco, Ironport tambm se alia Westcon (28 May 2008) Depois de se aliar à Cisco também no Brasil, a Westcon traz mais uma marca da gigante, a Ironport, para sua oferta local. O acordo prevê a venda das soluções de gteways de segurança para ambientes de e-mail e web. Read Article.
ARN (AU): Nortel Goes Head to Head with Cisco on Green (26 May 2008) Titled 'Fact or Fiction,' the campaign is based around research conduced by the Tolly Group that backs the vendor's claims that its products use less energy and are cooler to run than Cisco's. The campaign is being supported by the vendor's distributors, Westcon Group and Anixter. Read Article.
ITP.net (SA): Datatec Details Middle East Performance (25 May 2008) Networking services group Datatec - which counts the Westcon and Comstor distribution brands among its stable - has revealed that the Middle East and Africa now accounts for 6% of its $4 billion turnover. Datatec's strategy of pushing deeper into emerging territories is clearly proving a wise one after the recent publication of audited annual results confirmed the company achieved group-wide EBITDA of $151m on organic sales up 12% year-on-year during its last financial year. Read article.
Mag Securs (FR): Westcon Security Innove et Lance Une Novelle Formation (May 2008) Pour nos clients intervenant dans des contextes très complexes et quelque fois internationaux, il ne suffit plus d’aligner sur un projet des experts de telle ou telle marque, il faut maintenant un label de compétences et d’éthique dans une approche sécurité. Read article.


Internal threat remains high Research at the Infosecurity Europe show last month shows that most IT directors are much more worried by internal threats than hackers. When asked whether they believed insider or outsider threats posed a bigger problem to their organisation, more than 80% of the 103 Directors surveyed prioritise insider threats (defined as either unintentional data leakage or deliberate data theft). Read more
Security barrier to enterprise mobility Apple’s iPhone has reignited the debate over ‘consumerization’ - when new technologies are introduced into the consumer market and then brought into the enterprise market - with employees determined to integrate their personal devices with their enterprise applications. However, IT managers are reluctant to take on the responsibility of managing these devices. This is according to a new report by independent market analyst Datamonitor. Read more.
New head of sales and marketing at Avaya Avaya has appointed Todd Abbott to lead its global sales and field marketing organisations. Abbott was named senior vice president and president, Field Operations. Abbott joins Avaya from Seagate Technology, where he was executive vice president, Sales, Marketing and Customer Service. Read more.
Extreme networks in demand Could Enterasys be ready to buy Extreme Networks? Extreme Networks’ shares have jumped 18 cents, or 5.9%, to $3.25 in one day; with volumes totalling 2.56 million shares, about triple the daily average. According to one institutional investor in the shares, there are rumours that the company might be an acquisition target for private held Enterasys, which has apparently said that it is actively hunting for acquisitions. Read more.

Global press coverage, 30 May 2008 Here is a chart that reflects our recent PR performance: We hope you have found this edition of Marketing Matters helpful. We encourage you to give us feedback and suggestions on how Marketing Matters can make this newsletter more useful for you. Until next time... The Westcon Group Marketing Matters Team

Marketing Matters April 18, 2008

Capitalizing on our Cisco Awards Last week, Comstor picked up several awards from Cisco, the most prominent being "Multi-Theatre Partner of the Year," among many others. Please take a moment to watch Duncan describe the significance of these awards and how this positively impacts our relationship with Cisco-oriented customers around the world* Watch Duncan Potter Overview Video

Press Release: Westcon Group Introduces Powerful SMB Onboarding Tool for North American Resellers Seeking Manufacturer Certification (8 April 2008) Tarrytown, NY, April 8, 2008 - Westcon Group, Inc., the leading specialty distributor in networking, convergence, security and mobility, announced the availability of its SMB onboarding tool, designed to help resellers accelerate success in the SMB market by easing the manufacturer-certification process. The tool is available through Westcon’s ConvergencePoint SMB program in North America and is initially focused on Nortel BCM. Read More Press Release: Westcon and iHub Bring Hosted IP Services to Reseller Community (10 April 2008) London 10th April 2008: iHub, the hosted communications provider, and Westcon Group, the leading value-added distributor of convergence, security and mobility solutions, announced that Westcon will be offering 4SureConnections, a hosted telecommunications solution. 4SureConnections is a white label platform solution enabling Westcon resellers to provide hosted services—helping increase their overall value proposition to end-users and allowing them to benefit from predictable annuity revenues. Read More Press Release: Cisco Recognizes Westcon Group with “Global Distributor of the Year” and “Multi-Theatre Partner of the Year” Awards (15 April 2008) Tarrytown, NY, April 15, 2008 - Westcon Group, Inc., the leading specialty distributor in networking, convergence, security and mobility, announced that it has been presented with two prestigious awards at this year’s Cisco Partner Summit, held last week in Hawaii. Westcon was named “Global Distributor of the Year” and “Multi-Theatre Partner of the Year”, an award which has never before been awarded to a distributor. Read More Press Release: Comstor Europe Picks up Cisco’s “European Distributor of the Year” Award, Along with Five Country Awards and Five Geography Awards (15 April 2008) Tarrytown, NY, April 15, 2008 - Westcon Group, Inc., the leading specialty distributor in networking, convergence, security and mobility, announced that Comstor Europe has won several key awards at the Cisco Partner Summit held last week in Hawaii. In addition, Westcon Group was named “Global Distributor of the Year,” and “Multi-Theatre Partner of the Year”— the latter of which has never before been awarded to a distributor. Read More

TMC.net (US): Westcon Adds Ingate Solutions to Offerings (6 April 2008) Ingate Systems, which develops firewall technology and products, announced that it has been selected by Westcon, a specialty distributor of advanced network technology solutions, to add its Ingate Firewall, Ingate SIParator, and a broad range of security solutions for SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) to the Westcon portfolio of enterprise offerings. Read article
Phone+ (US): Westcon Introduces Onboarding Tool (19 February 2008) Westcon Group Inc. has launched its SMB onboarding tool, designed to help resellers in the SMB market by easing the manufacturer-certification process. The tool is available through Westcon’s ConvergencePoint SMB program in North America and is initially focused on Nortel BCM solutions. Read article
CommsBusiness (UK): Westcon in iHub Launch (10 April 2008) In what they describe as being ‘Instant Communication Solutions for UK SMBs’ iHub, a UK-based telecom provider, has launched a channel hosted telephony service using the IP Powered SC2000 Business Solution from Nortel. Read Article
ResellerWeb (BR): Cisco deve anunciar mais um distribuidor nas pr�ximas semanas (19 February 2008) Depois de oficializar o acordo com a Westcon, a Cisco trabalha para firmar aliança com um terceiro distribuidor da marca para o mercado brasileiro. Já há algum tempo os canais da companhia vinham sendo sondados a respeito dessa possibilidade. Read Article
Channel Business (UK):Nortel Reveals Partner Award Winners (8 April 2008) Nortel has announced the winners of its partner awards from its PartnerFocus events that have been taking place across the country. At Wednesday event in London awards went to: Tiffany Williams, BT for Best UC win; Peter Njoku, Connect Communications for Best SMB win; Margaret Walsh, BT for Best Call Centre; Dan Davies, Unified Group as Best Channel SE person; Richard Lloyd, Maintel as Best Reseller salesperson and James Turner, Westcon as Best Distributor salesperson.* Read Article
CRN (NL): Comstor beste Cisco distributeur 2007 (14 February 2008) Andy Lockhart, Cisco vice president Benelux: "Wederom heeft Comstor Nederland onze verwachtingen met het ontwikkelen van zijn resellers overtroffen o.a. door het voeren van zijn OneVoice en OneDefense programma, samen met onze programma's op het gebied van certificering en specialisatie. Het niveau van expertise en uitvoering maakt duidelijk wat de toegevoegde waarde is van Comstor voor de Cisco reseller en zorgt er tevens voor dat zij op een hoger niveau oplossingen aan hun eindklant kunnen aanbieden." Read Article
CRN (NL): Comstor beste Cisco distributeur 2007 (14 February 2008) Andy Lockhart, Cisco vice president Benelux: "Wederom heeft Comstor Nederland onze verwachtingen met het ontwikkelen van zijn resellers overtroffen o.a. door het voeren van zijn OneVoice en OneDefense programma, samen met onze programma's op het gebied van certificering en specialisatie. Het niveau van expertise en uitvoering maakt duidelijk wat de toegevoegde waarde is van Comstor voor de Cisco reseller en zorgt er tevens voor dat zij op een hoger niveau oplossingen aan hun eindklant kunnen aanbieden." Read Article
CommsBusiness (UK): Westcon Group is Cisco's Global Distributor of the Year (14 April 2008) Distributor Westcon Group has been presented with two awards at this year’s Cisco Partner Summit, held last week in Hawaii. Westcon was named “Global Distributor of the Year” and “Multi-Theatre Partner of the Year," an award which has never before been awarded to a distributor. Read Article
CRN (BR): Cisco, Westcon Extend Global Agreement To Brazil (16 April 2008) When Cisco (NSDQ:CSCO) Brasil's distributor, Mude, came under investigation for tax fraud in October 2007, the manufacturer turned to Ingram Micro (NYSE:IM) as a partner. But in February 2008, Westcon Brasil was selected to represent the new Cisco distribution branch in Brazil. Read Article


Extreme Networks Offers "Widget Central" RSA is offering new capabilities in data loss prevention through the RSA Data Loss Prevention (DLP) Suite. The RSA DLP Suite is engineered to provide unified, seamless data policy orchestration across the enterprise, allowing customers to discover and monitor sensitive data and apply the appropriate enforcement mechanisms to secure sensitive data across the IT stack, it says. Read more...
RSA Offers New Data Loss Prevention RSA is offering new capabilities in data loss prevention through the RSA Data Loss Prevention (DLP) Suite. The RSA DLP Suite is engineered to provide unified, seamless data policy orchestration across the enterprise, allowing customers to discover and monitor sensitive data and apply the appropriate enforcement mechanisms to secure sensitive data across the IT stack, it says. Read more...
Security Issues May Limit Business Security concerns are holding businesses back and limiting thinking and creativity, says RSA president Art Coviello. A new study commissioned by RSA and presented at this week's RSA conference found that more than 80% of IT, security, and business executives surveyed admit that their organisations have shied away from business innovation opportunities because of information security concerns.. Read more...
Seven IT challenges, by Gartner Many of the emerging technologies that will be entering the market in 2033 are already known in some form in 2008, according to analyst Gartner. Many of the innovations that will unfold during the next 25 years can be found today in research papers, patents, or are in a prototype in production. Read more...


Global press coverage, 18 April 2008 Here is a chart that reflects our recent PR performance: We hope you have found this edition of Marketing Matters helpful. We encourage you to give us feedback and suggestions on how Marketing Matters can make this newsletter more useful for you. Until next time... The Westcon Group Marketing Matters Team

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Marketing Matters 5/2/08 - The BDX is Here!

Marketing Matters April 18, 2008

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