REGIONAL CHANNELS
MAYFLEX SNAPSHOT
Mayflex was founded a hundred years ago, in 1917 in Birmingham, England. Over the years its business has been transformed quite dramatically. From initially selling switchgear, electrical, coaxial, voice cables, to copper and fibre cabling, racks, wireless, security and converged IP solutions in the last two decades.
A core offering from Mayflex is the Excel brand, which is an extensive structured cabling system, first launched in 1997 and developed to provide end to end comprehensive solutions. When installed by an accredited Excel partner, Excel products come with a 25-year product and application warranty.
“ Not just anybody can install it. We have security solutions from vendor partners on some of the projects, where you need to be certified to install their products. So, we need to train. We need to identify who the major players are in the market, what type of people are betting on our projects, get them trained to make sure they know the products, and make sure they are picking the right solutions,” reflects McLetchie, on the proactive involvement of Mayflex.
The distributors involvement with channel partners is key to ensuring its solutions meet technology, commercial and return on investment benchmarks set by end customers, many in prestigious locations.
Another important part of the due diligence that regional channel partners go through with Mayflex is their financial stability. Mayflex and Excel channel partners need to have the financial strength to close any project once they have initiated it. With regard to extended credit terms, McLetchie’ s approach with recently on-boarded channel partners, is they need to be able to walk before they can run a marathon.“ We have been trading for a hundred years and we are a financially stable company. The reason we are is because we are very sensible when we give the terms that we give. You need to be careful in the Middle East.”
Mayflex extends credit terms to partners that have a good trading history with them. Channel partners need to build confidence with Mayflex, its vendor partners, and its credit controllers. If channel partners have a consistent trading pattern, meet their agreements and adhere to them, credit terms can be extended.
Key Mayflex channel partners are large scale, regional project integrators, handling multi-technology, multi-vendor, multi-solution projects. These include Al Futtaim Technologies, AECOM, Atkins, MDS, Omnix, WSP, MDS, amongst others.
With the growth curve of smart city applications and IoT solutions adoption expected to start rising well before 2020, Mayflex and its channel partners are well positioned to take advantage of this positive trend in the region.
On the regional side, Mayflex Middle East is based in Dubai, which is the main hub for logistics, sales and support offices, and services customers across the Middle East, Levant and Africa. The warehouse located in Jebel Ali, Free Trade Zone stocks a range of copper, fibre optic and voice-cabling systems, together with racks, cabinets, networking and electronic security products.
Today the business of Mayflex is organised into three divisions. These include structured cabling infrastructure, networking, and electronic security divisions.
Infrastructure This division includes copper cabling systems; fibre optic cabling systems; voice cabling systems; cabinets racks enclosures; containment, power distribution and protection; aisle containment; connected lighting systems; tooling and testing; installation accessories; and software. A principal vendor in this category, whose products Mayflex distributes, is Excel. Other than cabling systems from Excel, global vendors listed in this division, whose products Mayflex includes in its solutions, are APC, Eaton, Ackermann, Philips, Geist, Cablofil, Air Magnet, AFL Noyes, Fluke Networks, Fujikura, OWL, IM & M, amongst others.
Networking This division includes wired Ethernet switching solutions, wireless Ethernet WiFi, environmental and security threat management, asset management, power management. Global vendors listed in this division, whose products Mayflex includes in its solutions, are Aruba, HP Enterprise, Geist, RFCode, APC, Edgecore Networks, amongst others.
Electronic security This division includes CCTV cameras, image recording and storage, infra-red and white light illuminators, transmission, video management software, video content analytics, access control. Global vendors listed in this division, whose products Mayflex includes in its solutions, are Dahua Technology, Axis Communication, Mobotix, Avigilon, Paxton, Raytec, Milestone, amongst others.
24 Issue 03 INTELLIGENT TECH CHANNELS