MERLION- Kazakhstan: 100% Business Growth

MERLION has summed up the results of branch operation in Kazakhstan for the first half of financial year 2013. Results of company performance analysis showed the dynamics of turnover growth exceeding earlier planned performance indicators that allows us to state of two-fold business growth by the end of the current financial year. This was enabled due to several factors: growth of partners by more than 50%, active expansion in all countries of Central Asia and Transcaucasia, portfolio increase up to 100 official Distribution agreements, launch of its own Training Center and more.

First of all it is worth noting that the branch in Kazakhstan (Almaty) is a base office for business management in the territory of other countries of Central Asia and Transcaucasia. In particular, the company is actively operating in the territory of Azerbaijan, Kirghizia, Uzbekistan, Georgia, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan and Armenia. Only in 2013 the company entered the markets of these countries, but it can be already stated with certainty that the interest from their part exceeds expectations. In as little as six months, 200 new partners have joined MERLION and now they are amounted over 500.

Here, in Kazakhstan there is a regional warehouse complex of the company - one of the largest on IT- market of Kazakhstan, from where MERLION partners purchase the products.

Moreover, it is important to stress on the active partnership policy of the company, maximum adaptive to the local market conditions and allowing to involve all available marketing channels. If to translate into language of figures, it can be said that the structure of dealership network is well balanced. Today it looks as follows: about half of the partners (48%) - Republican retail chains, 20% of partners are working on the system integration market, 29% - resellers, another 3% are local players (regional retail).

As to the structure of sales by product groups, it has undergone some changes during the reporting period - processors rose from fourth to second position, displacing laptops. Thus, today top-5 products include (descending): internal hard drives (20%), processors (17%), laptops (11%), Enterprise products (9%) and separately company allocates quite substantial share of one of its key vendors - IBM Software (9%).
On the other hand, five largest MERLION-Kazakhstan brands in circulation in 2013 remained the same, the only changes were observed in the order of first three brands: Intel (18%) has grown from the third position to the first one, Lenovo maintains second position (12%), and the third place was taken by Seagate (11%), NetApp (9%) and WD (9%) round out the top five.

Opening of its own Training Center on the branch base, in terms of MERLION VAD-direction development, became another, not least in order of importance, indicator of growth. The following objectives were set for the Center: regular workshops for the partners, trainings, training and practical events on products. Training Center technical base allows laboratory work to be done using remote access to the demo resources both of the distributor and some VAD-vendors (NetApp, IBM). This became possible due to MERLION Engineering Technical Center competencies, which provides services in the sphere of design hardware and software support, and also additional services to the partners and their customers. It should be noted that MERLION Technical Center services in terms, for example, NetApp solutions, are unique and exclusive in the markets of Kirghizia, Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan.

"All is flux, nothing stays still. Technologies are being improved and markets are being developed. Including markets of Central Asia and Transcaucasia, which until recently were not thought to be promising, are being actively developed today, their technological base is enhanced, new players appear on the market and consumer demand is growing. Continue to ignore them would be at least strange, - says Victoria Tarantina, MERLION’s Business Development Director, Department of International Operations. - In particular, we think highly of VAD market. In Kazakhstan, we have taken first place in the distribution market of Seagate and WD hard disk drives, the same position (No. 1) is currently taken by Intel processors and we are the largest distributor of IBM and NetApp software. All abovementioned is confirmed by high demand, market development and our most serious intentions to the leadership in this segment".

In conclusion, it should be said about MERLION service network in Kazakhstan - it amounts to 20 offices, including outsourcing ones and covers all the largest cities of the Republic.