Taking a
UNIFIED APPROACH
Strong partnerships have always been crucial in the IT industry, but they
are more important than ever as the channel takes a unified approach to
support customers through the current global health crisis. Sherifa Hady,
EMEA Sales Director for Europe, the Middle East and Africa at Aruba, tells
us how the company is supporting its channel partners and customers and
outlines her priorities for the year ahead as organisations across the world
continue to navigate through these challenging times.
Sherifa Hady – EMEA Sales Director for EMEA at Aruba
In her role at Aruba, Sherifa Hady is
responsible for the channel in Europe, the
Middle East and Africa, working alongside
her team to manage partners, resellers at all
membership levels, as well as distributors.
With the Coronavirus pandemic having
created challenges for businesses shifting to
remote working practices across the globe,
robust infrastructure is more important than
ever before.
Here, Hady tells us more about how
Aruba is working with its partners to
support customers during this time of crisis.
Providing support for employees,
customers and partners
The most important priority for Aruba, a
HPE company, is the health and welfare of
its employees and their wider families, Hady
said. The company’s CEO recently announced
We have said to all
partners they will
maintain their level,
regardless of achieving
the revenue threshold.
that, even as lockdown begins to ease,
employees will not yet return to the office
unless for voluntary reasons.
From a customer perspective, there are
a several things the company has done to
provide additional support, including the
announcement of a US$50 million donation
of Aruba products – mainly for healthcare
clinics but not exclusively.
“One example of this is a story that really
touches my heart,” said Hady. “We actually
transformed a floating cruise liner into a
pop-up hospital in Italy – our engineers were
involved with putting the solutions in place.”
All customers are now being asked to
pledge for this donation, putting requests in
via the channel partners.
“The second thing we have done is that,
obviously we know that cash is tight and
there will be a lot of customers that want to
go ahead with IT infrastructure or refreshes
that might not have the cash they thought
they would, so we have pledged a US$2
billion financial aid where we will ease
payments for customers using our financial
services,” said Hady. “We have also launched
a lot of solutions, mainly targeted at
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