AFRICA

REGIONAL CHANNELS

AFRICA

Southcomp Distribution Tunisie ( SDT ), a leading value-added distributor ( VAD ) and member of MIDIS Group , recently launched of its new Marketplace to serve the company ’ s channel community in Tunisia . Offering superior transactional experience to the channel community in that country and a wide variety of cloud-based solutions and services , the Marketplace will increase cloud adoption for channel partners and their customers .

Anis Abdessalem , General Manager , SDT , said : “ With companies transitioning to remote working in the light of the pandemic , there has been an increased uptake of cloud solutions as part of Digital Transformation initiatives . The cloud OPEX model has been very appealing to companies looking to ease budgetary pressures . Against this backdrop , we have decided to launch a Marketplace in Tunisia in order to develop a cloud ecosystem in the country and support customers and partners on their cloud journey . We believe that this will enlarge the scope of our current relationship with Microsoft , our strategic partner .”

The Marketplace in Tunisia currently hosts the entire Microsoft portfolio including Office 365 and Microsoft Azure . As a strategic partner to the software vendor , SDT is aiming to achieve a market share of 20 % of the Microsoft business in Tunisia in the first year . As the platform gains in popularity and favour with partners and businesses in the country , there is an intention to expand the solution offerings in the longer term by hosting other vendor solutions , providing partners with greater choice and more co-sell opportunities .

The cloud OPEX model has been very appealing to companies looking to ease budgetary pressures .

Prices and billing will be offered to partners in local currency .

To spread awareness about the new offering , SDT will conduct a launch event in the North African country . The distributor is also planning a schedule of webinars aimed at educating partners in Tunisia about the platform and how they can drive maximum benefit by taking advantage of

Anis Abdessalem , General Manager , SDT

interesting features – for example , setting up and managing their own “ white labelled storefront ”, thereby offering cloud solutions directly to end-customers .

Elaborating about future plans for the Marketplace , Abdessalem added that : “ Based on market feedback , we will introduce new platform features like extending the access to our Marketplace directly to our resellers ’ end customers . We will also host additional ISV cloud solutions and other offerings from market leading vendors including IBM , Citrix , Barracuda , Autodesk , Vade Secure , Cibecs and Circularo . All these initiatives will undoubtedly create further momentum and growth for the platform and increase productivity and profitability for our partners .” •

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