Acronis targets UK for channel growth
Vendor opens first UK office in London and reveals plans to grow channel to 200 resellers
US backup and recovery vendor Acronis is ramping up its UK presence and looking to double its number of channel partners.
The vendor has been active in the UK for about five years, but only opened its first UK offices last week, in London. Acronis has appointed Kevin Moreau as business development manager for Acronis UK, and Laurent Dedenis, who will be based in the firm’s Paris office, as managing director of international sales for Acronis EMEA.
Speaking to CRN last week, Moreau said the company wants to grow the UK team to about 10 personnel to help support its channel.
“We decided to open a UK office in Chiswick because we now have the market share, the resellers and the distributors on board to need a physical presence in the UK,” he said. “It is important that we are here and able to support and develop our partners.
“We do not just want to provide telephone support. We want to be able to provide pre- and post-sales support, technical, education and product support, and marketing support. It is easier and better to do that if you have a physical presence.”
Moreau said the vendor has bullish goals and wants to both double revenues and go on a partner recruitment drive within the next 12 months.
“I want to double the number of partners we have in the UK, which currently stands at about 100,” he said. “With the help of the UK channel we intend to double revenues within the first 12 months. Establishing a strong local presence is just the first step in this process.”
Moreau said the vendor is looking to recruit corporate resellers, such as SCC and Computacenter.
“Our core partners are mid-sized resellers so we are looking for more of these, but we can also bring value to VARs operating in the ERP or CRM space,” he added.
Any newly recruited VARs will go into the Acronis’ Partner Programme, which will give them marketing and technical support at either an Authorised or Gold level. The firm intends to begin a certification programme in the first quarter, according to Moreau.
Currently most of the vendor’s partners go through its distributor Interactive Ideas. Moreau said it was too early to discuss whether or not the vendor was looking to appoint any other distributors.
Michael Breeze, marketing manager at Interactive Ideas, said the distributor has worked with Acronis for about five years.
“We helped to grow the firm from a retail product into now offering its business-to-business software,” he said. “This is a new beginning because we are used to dealing with the US office. With the opening of Acronis’ UK site it will be a change of relationship for us – we were always its virtual office here, but now there will be more brand building and the channel should grow quite quickly.
“We will be holding reseller seminars and helping to support the recruitment drive. The more partners that are appointed, the more brand awareness there will be.”