Westcon opens doors on northern office

Distributor moves into Manchester digs to counteract misconception it has a southern bias

North star: Westcon aims to court resellers in the wake of Nimans split with Avaya

Distributor Westcon Con­vergence has opened an office in Man­chester to woo northern resellers in the wake of Nimans’ split with Avaya.

Some 75 per cent of Avaya’s UK business travels through Westcon, but UK and Ireland general manager Tim Brooks said the perception was that Westcon is a south-based organisation.

He told ChannelWeb: “Over the past few years our engagement with partners in the north has declined. We are keen to re-engage and show them the investments we have made.”

As an example, Brooks said Westcon had laun­ch­ed a six-strong sales and pre-sales team dedicated to Avaya’s SMB portfolio in April. It also recently launched totalSupport, a pre- and post-sales technical support package for Avaya IP Office resellers.

Brooks said totalSupport would see Westcon take the hit for the charging mechanism Avaya introduced earlier this year for tier-three escalation.

“Resellers aligned with Westcon can now access pre- and post-sales support for IP office free of charge,” he said. “We believe we are the only distributor guaranteeing not to charge partners for SME support.”