MERLION Business Channel 2012

MERLION has opened a series of regional partner meetings MERLION Business Channel 2012. The first event took place in Rostov-on-Don, bringing together over 70 partners from the southern region.

The program of the event was very challenging. Yulia Pechnikova, head of MERLION’s business development department, spoke to the partners on behalf of the organizer, followed by representatives of 10 vendors. Igor Smolyanitskiy, a representative of Fujitsu Technology Solutions in the Southern Federal District, presented to the partners Primergy servers and Eternus data storage systems. Tatyana Kagalnitskova, corporate accounts manager of APC, spoke about energy-efficient solutions for corporate systems. Konstantin Babanakov, Dell’s corporate solutions consultant, gave an overview of the whole line of the manufacturer’s corporate products and solutions. Andrey Samoylov, AOC business development manager in Russia, spoke about the business line of the vendor's monitors. Network drives and IP video surveillance servers by QNAP were presented directly by head of QNAP representative office in Russia, Andrey Vasilyev. Intel was represented by Viktor Sivolgin, manager for business development, motherboards and solid drives, who presented Intel’s desktop technologies. Denis Belikov, a regional manager of Lenovo (Southern Russia), told the partners about Lenovo’s partner programs. The results and plans of PocketBook’s operations were presented by Rostislav Gubarzhevskiy, partner manager. Anton Gaydenko, product manager for VMWare and VEEAM, spoke about the virtualization solutions and their capabilities for increasing sales and profitability of partner businesses. The session of vendor presentations was wound up by Vadim Khomyakov, partner manager from BenQ, who presented new developments in the product lines of LED monitors and projectors.

The meeting participants believe that quite a few of the newly presented products are promising, have a potential for demand and may significantly increase the business' marginality. The partners point out that the above is even more important in view of the overall slowing down of the regional IT market growth. In 2011, IT market in the south of Russia demonstrated high growth, as many partners reported a 30% increase of their revenues. However, participants of the local IT market agree that 2012 will not demonstrate the same dynamics. Retail segment is expected to grow up to 10%, and the system integration segment is even due for stagnation. Naturally, this situation made the partners invited to the conference closely follow the vendors’ presentations and select the products and technologies that may revive the demand and increase the business profitability.

According to the estimates of the open discussion participants at the conference, the major drivers of IT market growth in the southern region in the retail segment should include individual mobile devices and diversification of traditional IT retail with household appliances and electronics. In 2011, for instance, the sales of electronic books in the region were explosive. MERLION had predicted the trends long ago and had expanded its product portfolio accordingly. This defined the key objectives of the distributor’s meeting with regional partners: first, presenting an expanded product portfolio, and second – obtaining feedback, detecting special regional niches and commodity groups that enjoy a high demand in the regional market.

All members of the conference have emphasized a high informational saturation of the event and its benefits for determining the new lines of cooperation between the distributor, vendors and partners.

After the meeting was over, the participants could relax after hard work by attending a reception. The informal part included a performance by a Russian star, one of the best rock musicians in Russia. The same present surprise is awaiting the participants of the next partner conferences in other Russian cities. MERLION plans to meet the partners in five more cities which also form a basis for growth of the Russian IT market.