Boardwalk Communications and Alternetive Converged Solutions Inc. (ASCI), to its VAR channel.Although its main headquarters are located in Everett, Wash., its Canadian head office is based in Mississauga, Ont. Stuart Weinman, national sales manager for Fluke Networks Canada, said the company, which has for a while now had a direct sales force, recently saw the need to develop a VAR channel when the company realized its representation in Canada was of a limited scope. This realization, he said, resulted in the company’s decision late last year to establish a VAR community for itself.
“We wanted to create a VAR channel to have VARs in areas that we had limited representation in Canada,” Weinman said. “We decided corporately that we’d go after small to medium-size VARs who work with and co-exist with our direct sales reps.”
Adding Vancouver-based Boardwalk Communications and Calgary-based ACSI, Weinman adds, will help the company boost its sales and presence out in Canada’s West-coast. He mentions that because Fluke Networks already has a rather strong customer following on the industrial and networking solution side of things, the company’s next target area for growth is in the performance management space, an area, he says, where both Boardwalk Communications and ACSI will play a role in.
Philip Stone, president of Boardwalk Communications, a VAR that focuses on network integration and unified communications solutions, said the company will offer Fluke Networks’ IT Networking products which include solutions such as, Visual Performance Manager, NetFlow Tracker and Response Watch, all of which provide users with end-to-end visibility into their business’ networks.
“Our customers are looking for visibility into the network,” Stone said. “They want to know what’s going on and they want to identify problems, look at trending and forecasting with respect to networking.”
Being able to offer these solutions to IT professionals, Stone said, gives Boardwalk Communications one more reason to reach out to and talk to customers that they previously may not have had conversations with.
“We’ve had a couple of good wins here in Victoria and we’ve for the most part maximized the market here,” he continued. “We’re looking to expand our Vancouver office and once we get that in place, our next plan is to expand out to Alberta. I expect this relationship (with Fluke Networks) will help expand our base.”
Eugene Suarez, business development manager at Fluke Networks Canada, said partners can also take advantage of Fluke Networks’ Performance Advantage Partner Program, which provides partners with resources such as marketing, pre-sales and field sales support tools and training.
“We’re not in the market of recruiting hundreds of VARs,” Suarez said. “The last thing I want to do is flood the market with partners because that would mean their margins would suffer. In a typical sales scenario, VARs would receive a net profit within the double-digit range, which is key, because a lot of times, they’re dealing with lower,” he added.
As for future growth plans for Canada, Weinman said Fluke Networks is planning to add another two to four small-sized VARs across the country and perhaps adding one out on Canada’s East coast. Now including Boardwalk Communications and ACSI, Weinman said Fluke Networks currently has four VARs located across the country.
