Oracle, Tech Data to expand Kingdom reseller opportunities

"Tech Data is achieving great results with the Oracle brand around the region," said Jamal Qakeesh, general business manager from Oracle. "With the fastest and most cost efficient logistics management capabilities coupled with a great technical and marketing support to resellers, working with Tech Data to extend access to the Saudi market is a natural move forward of our strategic relationship."

"Our partnership with Oracle aims at opening up new business opportunities for the reseller channel in the Kingdom by bringing world leading solutions supported by a team of Oracle experts from Tech Data," said Eliot Shepherd, marketing director at Tech Data. The agreement falls within Tech Data's "Build VAR Business with Tech Data"- a year long program that aims at generating new revenue streams for the information technology reseller channel in the region. "There is a trend of increased spending on software in the Saudi market; by expanding the choice of software solutions to resellers, we allow the channel to capture the demand by expanding its own product mix," explains Shepherd.

Tech Data sponsored research on the Saudi market, carried out by Dubai-based research consultancy Paradigm, shows that more and more resellers in the Saudi market are trading with software: in 2000, 50% of the Saudi resellers traded with Software compared to 80% in 2001. "The sale of software goes hand in hand with supporting value added services," explains Shepherd. VAR, or Value Added Reseller, not only provides software to customers, but also delivers a range of services including consulting, software installation, training and upgrades. "Our agreement with Oracle will bring resellers the opportunity to expand their software marketing mix on the one-hand, and provide value added services to their clients on the other."

"We believe that the team handling the Oracle brand at Tech Data brings not only fast and efficient availability of Oracle solutions to the information technology resellers in Saudi Arabia, but also technical and marketing support to the channel that will help them service the Saudi businesses needs with VARs."

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