Panasonic showers more Tough love on the channel
Vendor set to invest more across Europe as demand for its Toughbook/ToughPad range soars
Panasonic Computer Product Solutions (CPS) is ploughing more investment into its Toughbook Engage partner programme as demand for its products across Europe continues skywards.
Just a year after the vendor officially launched its programme, it has built a network of 500 premier and registered partners, ISV partners and official distributors in 35 countries across Europe.
In the UK, Panasonic CPS has appointed three distributors in the form of SDG, Avnet and Centerprise, along with six Premier and 165 Registered Partners. The vendor claims that in just over a year, its partners have registered 800 business opportunities, equating to more than £200m worth of business.
When the Engage partner programme started, 35 per cent of CPS business was conducted through the channel and today the figure stands at 70 per cent. On a wider scale, in the first year of the European programme, Panasonic invested more than €1m (£863,000) in 250 joint marketing initiatives with 75 different channel partners – it now has its full channel support team in place with partner account managers in most core regions across Europe.
Sophie Nicolay, European channel marketing manager at CPS, said: “Working ever more strategically with channel partners has never been so important. With a growing market and an exciting product road map opening up even more opportunities, CPS has put the development of its channel network at the heart of its go-to-market strategy in order to offer customers the best solutions available on the market today.”
Kevin Jones, European sales director at CPS, added: “Panasonic Toughbooks and Toughpad tablets have always been designed to provide businesses with specialist computing devices to help get the best from their mobile workforces. As this market continues to grow, customers are looking for industry-specific solutions using Toughbooks and Toughpads to transform their productivity in the field. By partnering with channel specialists and ISVs we are able to deliver those solutions even more quickly and effectively to our customers.”