Local distributor Express Data has picked up the Global Distribution Innovator of the Year award at the Cisco global partner conference in San Francisco.
Express Data CEO Ross Cochrane told CRN the award was for marketing programs the company had driven to grow depth and breadth of Cisco penetration in the channel.
He said Express Data had continued to put money into programs last year despite the faltering economic conditions.
"You've got to make investments. Last year a lot of people pulled back from investing in stuff. But our view is you still need to differentiate yourself," said Cochrane.
Cochrane said the distributor had continually pushed the vendor to innovate its programs, especially in the services and business to business areas.
He said Express Data had done a lot of work to understand the requirements of renewing contracts and to make it easy for partners and Cisco to complete renewals.
"Contracts can be quite low dollar value and you can spend a lot of cycles doing that," said Cochrane.However, maintenance contracts gave resellers annuity revenues and an excuse to get in touch with customers about their IT requirements.
Cochrane also identified the distributor's efforts in promoting Cisco's Smart Care initiative, which provides consulting and support services to small and medium businesses.
"We took that on board quickly and drove it into the marketplace," said Cochrane.
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