MERLION Kazakhstan Forum`2013 was held in Almaty

In the end of October the city of Almaty was welcoming a large delegation of the biggest participants of the IT market of Kazakhstan and representatives of the leading IT manufacturers. All of them (more than 100 persons) have come to take part in the MERLION Kazakhstan Forum`2013. Almaty has become the second city in Kazakhstan, where MERLION brought together its current and potential partners in this region. The first city was Astana, where the Forum took place in the end of September.

Let us recall, that the MERLION Kazakhstan Forum`2013 is already the second season of large-scale meetings of distributors with their partners in Kazakhstan, which started in July 2012. This year for convenience of the Kazakh partners, the Forum took place in two cities – in Astana and in Almaty. The MERLION Kazakhstan Forum`2013 program was very intensive and eventful: summary of the first two years of the work of MERLION in the market of Kazakhstan, perspective estimation of different segments of the IT market, business development plans in this region for the next years.

The Almaty Forum supported the leading IT manufacturers: IBM, Intel, Lenovo, Nippon Klick (ТМ Digma, IPPON, Oklick, Jetbalance, PC Pet), Seagate, Supermicro, Unify Communications.

Same as in Astana, the meeting in Almaty has opened Victoria Tarantina, the Business Development Director in the countries of Central Asia and South Caucasus of MERLION. Victoria gave details about the partner distribution policy in Kazakhstan, highlighted all aspects of the advanced support from the partners, i.e.: financial, engineering and technical, marketing, logistic services. The speech from Victoria included information on the product portfolio of the company: more than 100 distributed MERLION brands in this region; among the last key contracts – with Acer, Canon, IBM (within the strategic partnership with the DNA company), Lenovo and exclusive distribution of Pantum in Kazakhstan. Victoria has reminded the partners about the individual conditions of MERLION, when working with large tenders, about new financial opportunities of joint participation in project delivery, about the possibilities of logistics and the services on the whole territory of Kazakhstan.

“We have announced about our strategic objective on the conference last year – to become the number 1 IT distributor in Kazakhstan and in the whole region of Central Asia and South Caucasus to 2015, – says Victoria Tarantina. – According to the results of the second year of presence in this market, I can say that we are moving to the announced objective with confidence. Even today we are the largest company not only due to our storage capacity, but also because of the number of partners (we are working with almost more than 500 companies), and volume of the product portfolio (more than 8000 items). We are also in the lead in terms of sales growth of products from such brands as Intel, Seagate, WD. And in the name of MERLION I would like to thank our current partners in Kazakhstan for the cooperation, and to welcome potential partners!”

Afterwards representatives from the manufacturing companies were speaking in front of the partners.

Anatoly Parkhomenko, the Business Development Manager of the Unify Communications has reminded to the audience, that one of the global leaders in the field of communication solutions for business communication and cooperation Siemens Enterprise Communications, transformed into Unify, and has presented in his speech the “Newest instruments of business communication”. Anatoly gave details about the opportunities and advantages of the OpenScape Business platform, about trainings for sellers and consultants and the education of technicians in the Unify Academy – a global education and advanced training centre.

Two representatives from the Seagate company took part in the Forum. Valentina Aleshina, FSU Retail Sales Representative, made a report “The Golden Age of Storage.  Branded Solutions Q4`2013”; Anna Ryzhkova, Senior Destination Representative of Seagate in the countries of the former Soviet Union (CIS and Baltic states) made a presentation “Trends in the market of hard drives, review of new products”. The representatives highlighted the industrial trends and perspectives, provided analytical data in the market of devices, presented Seagate products (external and internal hard drives) and told about the current partner programs.

Andrei Sushinskiy, the IBM Software product line Senior Manager, has told about the IBM program products from the IBM Collaboration Solutions direction. By describing the whole IBM solution spectrum, Andrei specified their advantages, such as: a wide range of products from the corporation, scalability of the software from small business to intercontinental corporations, high marginality for partners. He has also presented to partners programs, which suppose additional discounts, rebates, special contracts; and mentioned such services as: training and certification of specialists, marketing support of sales and consulting.

Alexander Homenko, specialist in Intel corporate technologies made a report on the topic: “Newest in the Intel processor line in 2013”. He has noted that we are experiencing the beginning of the era of “2 in 1” solutions; and that the 4th Generation Intel Core Processors are the biggest breakthrough in the field of PC for a decade and that contrasted with the desktop transformation, these processors enable to create the most functional monoblock PCs. For instance the corporation offers Ultrabook™, supporting the sensor display, WiDi technology and many other functionalities.

Vladimir Rusakov, Sales Director of Nippon Klick has described in details the trademarks of the corporation: multimedia players, navigation systems, data storage media, as well as a wide range of communication devices (tablet PCs, smart phones); IPPON – is one of the leader in the market of uninterrupted power supply; Oklick keyboards and mouse; acoustical systems Jetbalance, computer accessories PC Pet. Vladimir emphasized the presence of authorized service centers in the market of Kazakhstan. Two centers are working in Almaty, and a new service center will be opened in Atyrau in the nearest future.

The presentation “Server solutions of the Supermicro company” made a description of Supermicro platforms and components for servers, workstations and data storage systems.

Two speakers represented the Lenovo company on the Forum. “Lenovo ThinkPad Commercial products” were presented to the audience by Sagim Zhusupov, ThinkPad Corporate Sales Department Head. Sagim told about tablet PCs for business and about commercial desktops; emphasized, that the Lenovo company has become the largest manufacturer of personal computers in the world; specified, that the manufacturer pays special attention to the protection of the hard drive and that the Lenovo solutions have the best protection against spills.
“Consumable products of Lenovo IdeaPad” were presented to the listeners by Alexander Kim, the Sales Manager of the IdeaPad Department. A wide product range (monoblock computers, laptops, ultrabooks, as well as smart phones and applications), best technologies, accessibility, capacity and perfect service support – all of these is available for the end user.

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In the evening, at the end of the Forum, at the gala dinner was held… an auction. The auction goods were presented by gifts from vendors, where the monetary item was a so called “merliki”, which everyone could get during the presentations from the speakers, by answering correctly on easy and often unexpectedly funny questions.

The “auction” was filled with emotions and joy. You had to bargain pretty well, in order to get something from the “auction goods”: a Seagate hard drive, an ergonomic Oklick keyboard, an Oklick gaming mouse or a trendy Digma MP3 player.

MERLION is thankful for the participation of its partners in Kazakhstan and the vendors – for the support of the Forum and the presentations. Good bye until we meet again on the MERLION Kazakhstan Forum in the new 2014 season!