As EMC sharpens its focus on leveraging the South African channel to take its products and solutions to market, it has forged new partnerships with resellers specialising in solving the storage challenges of industry. Among these new partners is Puleng Technologies, an organisation which has earned a reputation for delivering storage solutions on the back of its strong technical expertise.

Prem Pather, EMC Channel Manager, explains that the company has re-strategised with a specific focus on go-to-market segmentation. “Channel business has for the first time become a critical and cooperative part of EMC’s internal sales team,” he says. In terms of its Velocity channel programme, clear rules of engagement have been established which provides for strategic alignment between partners and EMC.

Pather says that with its extensively expanded solutions which cover all aspects of information management EMC has opted to leverage the market reach and resources which come with a strong partner network. “Our strategy is to go higher, deeper and wider into the market. We have the products and technologies to address nearly every market sector, but there is simply no way we can muster the resources, including manpower and intellectual capability, to reach the potential market,” he notes.

As a Tier-2 partner, Puleng is focused on delivering EMC solutions for the mid-market. Managing director Paul Thompson says the opportunity for partnering with the vendor arose through the mutual interaction between the companies working on key accounts. “Our technical teams frequently found themselves working with EMC given the prevalence of its equipment and software in the market. Given the strong sales focus of the local EMC office and our delivery capability, the synergy for a partnership on this basis was recognised and put into motion.”

As a result, Thomson says EMC is able to complete the sales cycle by drawing on Puleng’s skills base; the company focuses specifically on EMC’s Data Library virtual tape products and its Backup, Recovery and Archiving (BURA) programme. “Storage is an increasingly complex discipline which depends on not just the appropriate products, but also on the design and configuration of solutions to meet the specific requirements of various businesses,” he says.

Aside from legislated requirements for data protection, many companies recognise that protecting their data effectively has a direct impact on sustainability and the productivity of their staff, Thompson adds.

“Our commitment to the partnership with EMC is to continually invest in skills development which enables us to provide the necessary deployment and support of BURA solutions from a presales and technical point of view.”

Thompson notes that in terms of EMC’s tiered model, software distributor Workgroup provides further delivery support in terms of ensuring product availability and support.

“Having established this relationship with EMC, and given its commitment to a revitalized channel strategy, Puleng is in a position to broaden its horizons considerably. “Our relationship with EMC is enabling us to deliver turnkey storage solutions which provide the information protection that our customers require,” he concludes.