The channel community may not know too much about Cesium; but that is going to change.
The Montreal-based accessories distributor has a new focus on solution providers with about 40 product lines from high profile vendors such as Otter Box, Kensington and Targus.
The company was started in 2003 by Vicken Kanadjian and Sanjay Bakshani and it deals primarily with service providers such as Rogers, Bell and Win Mobile. It also has relationships with big box retailers such as Best Buy and Walmart.
As accessories vendors, such as Otter Box expand their product solutions towards vertical markets such as healthcare and education, Cesium believes now is the right time to begin to build meaningful relationships with channel partners.
Cesium sales and marketing executive Lance Singer told CDN that the retail business continues to be steady, however the future is with value-added resellers and solution providers.
“Our top brands want us to invest in the corporate space, in the education market and with healthcare. We want to adapt to what our brands want in terms of capturing those markets. Going after VARs we believe is the best way to accomplish that,” Singer said.
According to Singer, accessories vendors such as OtterBox, Griffen, IHome, Lifeproof (owned by OtterBox) are getting smarter with their products and positioning them towards vertical industries. For example, OtterBox makes specific ruggedize cases for the construction industry.
There is a burgeoning market in education, Singer added. In the education space, students are given tablets and those products need to be protected because the school board wants to realize their investment in that technology.
Singer pointed to the new OtterBox Universe Case line of products as an example. These products come with many modules where you can add a wallet, a speaker, camera lens or RFID reader to the smartphone case. These solutions can be used in many areas of education, healthcare and others markets.
“This is an ecosystem for OtterBox and it’s a growing market for them,” Singer said.
Other markets for Cesium are retail and hospitality. Recently a major apparel retailer uses the channel for cases to protect their tablets at multiple locations. And, IHome products are being used in hotel rooms as docking stations for smartphones to be recharged, while playing music for their owners.
In 2016, Cesium developed its own brand called Blue Element. This new line features screen protectors and cases for every device on the market.
Singer said the company can also work with promotional firms for adding any logo or company information on accessories.
Cesium also carries mounts from vendor such as Iottie. These mounts are ideal for taxi cabs to house their smartphones, tablets and even Go Pros.
The company also covers several OEM brands such as BlackBerry, LG and Samsung.
Finally, Cesium also features Plantronics Bluetooth headsets for mobile and gaming uses.