The Westcon Group has named Chris Ranger as its new vice president of services for EMEA. Ranger will be responsible for services across a variety of product portfolios, including unified communications, network infrastructure and security. Part of his responsibility will focus on the Cisco-dedicated Comstor business unit.
Ranger will additionally be in charge of a special initiative to formalize the services model for the Tarrytown, N.Y.-based distributor. Components of that effort are expected to include training, post-sales support and technical audit services.
The Westcon services portfolio is designed to offer a full range of offerings from global procurement to executive selling. The company’s Global Procurement Services (GPS) manage key aspects of international warehousing, shipping, import/export and integration. A separate initiative, known as Executive Relevance Selling (ERS), is focused on strategic marketing and sales enablement around executive-level Cisco engagements. A variety of other logistical service programs are also intended to help support the second-tier channel.
[Related: Westcon Group Extends Its Avaya UC Portfolio]
Ranger's 25 years of industry experience include a recent leadership position at Intermec Technologies, where he led the transformation of the company’s services business to an outsourced model. He also was credited with that company's services revenue growth in EMEA.
Prior experience includes senior positions at Stratus Technologies, Siemens, Colt Telecom and Motorola Enterprise Mobility.
In his new role, Ranger reports directly to Jeremy Butt, Westcon's executive vice president of EMEA, and Andreas Dohmen, who leads the Comstor operation in EMEA.
"Partners require a distributor with varied services that support their offerings," said Jeremy Butt, in a prepared statement. "Chris will be instrumental to helping us broaden and further evolve our services strategy in EMEA."
Earlier this week, the Westcon Group also announced the extension of its Avaya distribution agreement to include Radvision Scopia videoconferencing gear and the company's GoldSeal support program.
PUBLISHED FEB. 7, 2013
