3Com Brazil Names Philips A Value-Added Distributor

3Com Brazil, aiming for large projects, has named Philips as a VAD (value-added distributor) for 3Com's entire product line. Since 2006, Philips has worked as an integrator for 3Com, and now assumes the function that, until November 2007, was performed by Westcon.

With this initiative, 3Com intends to use its pre- and post-sales power, and new VAD consulting services, to increase business activities in its channels base. This partnership will add value to offers focused on projects that received an investment greater than $200,000, company officials said.

"Philips had signed an agreement identical to those of other distributors, including specific rules to this category partners," said Adriano Gaudencio, 3Com's Brazilian general director.

Gaudencio said the new partnership will be able to provision resellers all over Brazil to offer technical support to its allied companies, and with its installed base, to open doors to the 40 channels that integrate 3Com's indirect sales program.

The new distributor has 80 representatives and value-added resellers in its portfolio, and Gaudencio estimates that, among them, ten will be part of the manufacturer channels program.

"We will work in a collaborative way with the 3Com partners," said Jose Fuentes, Philips Business Communications vice president for Latin America. The executive said that the company is already beginning to transfer projects to 3Com resellers. Philips will maintain its sales team, Fuentes said. As a reseller, 10 percent of the Business Communications negotiations area of Philips was related to 3Com products. Fuentes expects this percentage to increase to 25 percent inside the unit during next 12 months. "We hope to grow above 20 percent a year," he said.

3Com hopes that Philips will achieve a 15 percent share, staying among the five distributors linked to the brand. Gaudencio said 3Com in the Brazilian territory is expected to grow 58 percent in the last quarter of this fiscal year, compared to the same period last year. 3Com has invested about $1 million in the Brazilian subsidiary to guarantee technical support for the operation, Gaudencios said.

Last year, 3Com strengthened its channels program. "We certified more than 600 people in the use of our technology," Gaudencio said.

This story originally appeared in Portuguese here.

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