Cellnet reinvigorates IBM division

Stephen Harrison, managing director at Cellnet told CRN the distributor is bouncing back with new hires and a focus on their vendors and loyal customers.

“We are starting to turn the corner and everything is looking positive, we are now pleased with the progress so far and the hire of Aidan Fitzgerald,” he said.

Fitzgerald told CRN he officially started his new position in January and hasn’t had a quiet moment. One of his first initiatives in the new position will be to set up the distributor's new IBM solutions centre in NSW.

The centre will provide resellers with training, accreditation and demonstration facilities and allow partners to bring customers into the centre to demonstrate how IBM's solutions can work across their IT environment.

He said the solutions centre was specifically targeted at resellers that didn't have IBM facilities or demonstration equipment on-hand.

“We want to open up more business opportunities as new products are released. Our focus is to provide value add for IBM and our resellers," he said.

Cellnet’s IBM division is focused on IBM’s System X storage products, as well as IMB’s (joint with Ricoh) print products.

“We are going grow the business and are also in discussion with IBM about expanding our portfolio with new products. We are focused on getting it right first and then growing the server and storage portfolio,” said Fitzgerald.

Another initiative Fitzgerald will implement is wider accreditation for its technical team.

“We want to be able to provide value and knowledge for the resellers and help them with services where ever we can,” he said.

Harrison told CRN, Fitzgerald wasn’t the only hire for the distributor.

“We are changing our strategy, in particular out retail strategy. We have hired Elaine Schillinger to head the national retail side of things. We also have a new CFO, Stuart Smith, and a number of smaller changes within the company,” added Harrison.