D-Link: Recipe for Success

Sakkeer Hussain, director, Sales and Marketing, D-Link Middle East, talks partner strategy, key milestones, and all things channel in this detailed interview.

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How has D-Link’s channel strategy evolved in today’s distributed and digital-led environment?

At D-Link, our channel partners are our extended arms and are our representatives in the market. We work with our distributors, resellers and systems integrators to best cater to our customers’ networking and cloud needs. The overall strategy continues to be partner-led, and we have now made tweaks considering how the evolving market circumstances are changing our partners’ businesses. It continues to be our priority to provide our partner ecosystem with all the relevant resources they need to operate efficiently in the digital landscape. The distributed environment and hybrid work models have led us to create stronger digital initiatives to help partners reach their customers at any time and from any place.

Can you share key milestones from D-Link over the past year?

The past year has been great and 2022 has already seen many positive outcomes. D-Link Middle East saw an increased growth rate last year. Most of this success can be attributed to new product innovations in networking and cloud segments, as well as partner growth in new markets. We also experienced a high growth in the SMB markets, the uptake for our SMB-focused cloud solutions have been popular.

How has D-Link invested in its channel ecosystem?

As new and advanced technologies become mainstream, there is a real problem of skills deficit that is required to deploy these technologies and to maintain them. At D-Link, we take trainings seriously and have invested in regular training sessions for our partners. These training workshops are also a platform for partners to voice their challenges and for us to think of collaborative solutions to help them overcome it. Our key objective is to help partners completely optimise the opportunities that the digital landscape presents. Besides focusing on training and education, we also have D-Link Business Solution Partner Programme, through which partners can gain high incentives. We regularly update the programme, keeping in mind evolving market conditions and partners’ requirements.

Can you elaborate on D-Link Business Solution Partner Programme?

D-Link Business Solution Partner Programme offers a platform for two-way marketing information system (MIS) for partners to understand competition, assess market requirements and introduce new products and technologies. It features four tiers – Authorized Solution Partner (ASP), Preferred Solution Partner (PSP), Preferred VoIP Partner (PVP) and Empower Solution Partner (ESP). Partners have the option to grow into one level to another, depending on technical capabilities, market share and business growth. They can grow their sales potential with D-Link Solutions as all four tiers offer compelling benefits.  D-Link partners receive significant support and rewards for accomplishingverifiable D-Link targets on a regular basis.

How can partner businesses invest in upskilling?

Channel partners must make it a point to invest in their own workforce. As a vendor, we can provide all the tools and resources, but they too must understand the importance of how upskilling can directly help with revenues. We believe excellent customer service together with proficient technical skills can be the perfect combination for a partner’s success in the digital world. They can do this by offering upskilling opportunities and incentives for those individuals from their team who go the extra mile. We can think of ways together on how this can be designed into a systematic process. We encourage our partners to come and talk to us if they need additional support in this regard.

How can channel partners capitalise on the accelerated cloud transformation that is taking place in the region?

Channel partners are in a unique position to take advantage of the surge in demand for cloud solutions to support hybrid and distributed work models. They can double down on their roles as customers’ consultants and demonstrate the huge benefits they can have by migrating workloads to the cloud. They need to expand their portfolios to include cloud-based offerings. Customers are looking for the right partner to help them navigate all the complexities of cloud. Along with moving to cloud, cybersecurity is another area that is now an urgent need for organisations. Partners need to have strong capabilities to help customers make the transition with as little downtime as possible, and ensure security is integrated right from step one.

D-Link’s Nuclias Connect and Nuclias Cloud solutions are cloud-based and have been a huge success in the market. Through our mydlink cloud services, customers can view, access, and monitor all their mydlink cloud cameras from anywhere. We also have cloud-based routers and access points, all of which are available to our partners to position in their customers’ cloud strategy.

What is the business objective at D-Link Middle East for this year?

D-Link’s business objective revolves around innovating to be many steps ahead of the market. We also don’t believe in resting on our laurels, so we are continuously looking at developing new products, solutions and services around 5G, IoT, AI, smart home tech, Wi-Fi 6, cybersecurity and networking.

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