Also dishes on its upcoming channel plans in Australia.
PC peripherals and imaging solutions vendor Logitech makes no secret of the role its legacy and reputation as a brand for gamers plays in building up its channel partner ecosystem in Australia.
Sean Byrne, the vendor’s head of video conferencing for Australia and New Zealand, said Logitech would shine bright during trade shows, where resellers and company IT managers would talk about their favourite Logitech gear.
“They use the brand, they’ve seen it, some have a Logitech mouse and keyboard at their desktops at home or in the office, and more recently more have the webcams and headsets,” Byrne said.
Once an opening comes up, the vendor would then bring up its enterprise offerings like meeting rooms and other video conferencing technology.
“With the meeting rooms, you’ll be amazed to see how disarmed people are about the technology, because you've got to make technology that's easy for people to use,” Byrne added.
“So they've seen the brand, and an IT department then rolls it out within their meeting rooms. Funnily enough, people are willing to walk in and just use [the technology]. There's not that technology fear, where some people walk in and go ‘I’m a bit uncertain’. There seems to be that comfort that they’ve used Logitech at their desktops in either gaming or somewhere else in a consumer perspective.”
That also adds value not only to Logitech but also to its resellers, breaking down barriers about brand awareness when they’re reselling video conferencing software.
“The end user has seen our brand before and they’re okay with it, and that rolls out to enterprise and other parts of Logitech’s business because we’re winning a lot in that space. When you’re looking to deploy 100 rooms, you’d want to know that the users that are going to use the product are comfortable with the brand and will actually use them.”
“And that’s one of the things that really helps us drive into certain segments of the market, and it continues to add value to our channel partners because they want to be able to sell products that people want.”
Logitech has also worked to build up its enterprise video conferencing business, starting from one pre-sales rep to now having three, as well as some sales staff in Melbourne and Queensland.
Byrne also said a dedicated channel account manager for ANZ was brought in for the first time, dedicated to working with channel partners, and working alongside the video conferencing-focused distribution manager.
“We've got the sales expertise and the knowledge, and then we've got that technical expertise that we could bring in that really adds value to the reseller, because sometimes they need that help from the vendor,” Byrne said.
“Not everyone is strong in AV, and we want to make sure that we really support the reseller, as much as we can through the process, but also by doing that we're supporting the end user as well.
“Because of this, Logitech has continued to grow with video conferencing in general because of the adoption lately of video conferencing and the way everything’s changing to a hybrid environment. So we wanted to make sure that we were putting ourselves in a position where we were skilled and had enough people to help the reseller when they needed it so they could sell their product with confidence.”
