Markham, Ont.- D&H Canada made two major announcement at its first ever FunFair Technology show, held here, at the Hilton Suites Conference Centre.
The more significant announcement was the signing of Microsoft Canada to a distribution agreement.
According to Jeff Davis, senior vice president of sales for the Harrisburg, Penn.-based distributor, Microsoft asked the company to come to Canada, but because of alignment issues at the time Microsoft was not one of its inaugural vendor partners at the launch of the D&H Canada last year.
“Over time it made sense for Microsoft because we bring them the incremental customer and they like our approach to the SMB customer,” Davis said.
Greg Tobin, the GM of D&H Canada, said that Microsoft is the strategic glue that pulls all the partners together.
“We have the customers and we bring in more SMB customers every day and we are little easier to do business with in terms of opening up accounts, engagement levels, and we have unique customers. We bring that to the table as well as our focus. We do not get distracted by huge selling amounts. We just focus on the line card,” Tobin said.
Currently, D&H Canada has more than 1,600 active customers or resellers signed up to accounts. The subsidiary’s planned 300 per cent monthly growth goals have been surpassed by a wide margin, he added.
D&H was one of Microsoft’s more effective distribution partners during the Vista launch. During the first week of Vista more than 45 per cent of OEM sales in the U.S. came through D&H and Microsoft recognized that, Davis said.
“We got behind the new product launch and put out a lot of marketing materials to customers and on our Web site. We also had the sales rep call people. It was a good synergy and most distributors do not do product launches,” Davis said.
D&H did not stop with just one announcement at the FunFair08. The company also announced a partnership with Groupe Millenium Micro, a computer technology buying group for Eastern Canadian-based computer storefront operations.
Through the partnership, D&H Canada resellers can take advantage of a roster of support services. The Group offers marketing tools such as brochures and mailers; a group purchasing program; sales advice and strategies; annual training and trade events; plus a networking community of peers to whom members can turn for answers and ideas and to share best business practices.
“The way they approach the market is different. What I find is that they are aggressive on price, but they have more quantities of products than the others. They carry less SKUs, but they have more products in each line,” said Carl Paquin, vice-president of Group Millenium Micro.
As for the show itself, it featured seminars from Microsoft, Cisco and HP along with a technology trade show with vendors such as Viewsonic, Western Digital and many others.
More than 200 people attended the event. D&H had 15 red shirted sales rep on the floor meeting with customers. The company even flew in loyal reseller partners such as OTV from Saskatoon for the event.
“This has a different flavour from our Harrisburg show. The program is similar to engage the customers and give them specials. It is a big buying show and they get to see the latest tech products. They get educated through the seminars and we feed them and try to make them happy so we get their orders. This is a good first step for a show,” Davis said.
