Almasa Distribution celebrates a new financial bench mark in Technology Distribution

It is believed that this value of technology products and components thrusts them to the number one distributor in the region based on sales revenue achieved.

Almasa Distribution, which was founded in 1996, is one of the few local technology distribution houses compared with international companies that have entered the region. Mr. Parvez Ahmed, Sales & Marketing Director commented on the sales results, "We are delighted to have broken the $24million US monthly barrier, and at the end of the first half of the year this represents an 54% increase year-on-year comparing the first half of 2003 with 2002".

Almasa have put their success down to four business pillars:
A Strong Front Line: Mr Ahmed commented, "We're the local guys". Almasa Distribution started with a small team of three key sales people. Mr Ahmed continued, "Along with myself, I had two colleagues, Abdul Rahman Safadi (today the Regional Sales Director) and Kjouri Ibrahim (today the Deputy Managing Director). We started by building strong foundations. We achieved this by getting to know our resellers personally on a one-to-one basis with daily meetings. I've had the same mobile number since then and the resellers know they can call me directly 24/7".

Ahmed, Safadi and Ibrahim are once again together at the helm of Almasa Distribution, after two years apart, and their enthusiasm and innovation has been the driving force behind the continued success and recent sales achieved. Fundamental to this thriving partnership is the team of over 200 people that are today the front line at Almasa Distribution. Mr Ahmed summed it up by saying, "Having a dynamic and motivated team is one of the key strengths in Almasa Distribution. These are the guys on the street selling and we make sure we never forget that."

Vertical Focus: Almasa Distribution has a wide portfolio of tech products from leading local and international vendors. With over 18 vendors represented it has been keen to focus resellers on the right solutions depending on their individual geographical and key customer base. Internal reorganisation has lead to vertical sales teams who are specialised in offering the highest customer support with the maximum product knowledge - not just vendor by vendor, but covering the market the way the end user sees it.

Vendor Support: "The success of any distributor is fuelled by the relationship with their vendors", according to Mr Ahmed. Almasa Distribution have proven its success to their vendors, and in doing so have been recognised by being given larger distribution territories. In the last 6 months Hewlett Packard have offered distribution rights to Almasa Distribution in the United Arab Emirates. Maxtor have increased their distribution to include initially North Africa, and later Middle Africa and Turkey.

Channel Relationships: The fourth pillar of success has been an increased support level to the reseller channel and assemblers in the region. Almasa Distribution has worked hard in the past six months to provide it's resellers with significant added value. Local service centres are just one example of this. Improved channel marketing & communications and flexible business relationships has increased the ease of conducting business with Almasa Distribution. Mr Ahmed highlighted this graphically, "Almasa Distribution makes sure that we work ethically with our resellers showing them total transparency."