Ingram Micro South Africa was voted 2010 Africa Distributor of the Year at the recent EMEA Channel Academy event in Monte Carlo, Monaco.
The awards, held in conjunction with the second annual DISTREE XXL channel event that brings together more than 1,000 vendor and channel executives from throughout the European, Middle East and Africa region, recognises the focus and ability of distributors in areas such as sales growth, channel coverage, credit facilities, financing, stock management, logistics, market development and reseller engagement.
In a comprehensive and transparent selection process in the months leading up to the gala event, hundreds of senior vendor executives are canvassed by the academy for distributor of the year nominations in nine regions. Nominations are then collated by the Channel Academy jury who select five nominees for each region. The list of nominees is then submitted to the channel executives at the gala event who vote electronically to select a winner in each region.
“To receive an official nomination is an achievement in itself,” said Farouk Hemraj, director at the EMEA Channel Academy. “We would like to congratulate all winners as well as those distributors that were nominated.”
Ingram Micro SA, a joint venture between MB Technologies and Ingram Micro, secured 45% of the votes cast to win the award for Sub-Saharan Africa (including South Africa). The four other nominees for the region were all South African-based distributors – Annex, Comztek, Rectron and Workgroup.
Hansie Fourie, CEO of Ingram Micro SA, said: “It was a great honour to be recognised by senior executives from throughout the vendor community across EMEA. We have made some difficult decisions in tough times, but our decision to focus on key brands and our willingness to offer our expertise and guidance to our partners seems to be paying off. We look forward to working together with our vendors and our business partners throughout the reseller channel to grow our mutual businesses in the years ahead.”
Distributor of the year awards were handed out for the following regions, Africa, Central & Eastern Europe, Dach, Middle East and North Africa, Northern Europe, Russia & CIS, South East Europe, Southern Europe, UK & Ireland.
Ingram Micro won the 2010 EMEA Distributor Channel Initiative of the Year award for its logistics expertise and its ability to offer bespoke supply chain optimisation solutions to clients across EMEA.
