News

Comstor Increases Partner Revenue with Mentor Programme

Cirencester, UK, June 25, 2008 – Westcon Group, Inc., the leading specialty distributor in networking, convergence, security and mobility, announced that Comstor UK, Cisco ‘Distributor of the Year’ for the last five years, has achieved early successes with its Comstor Mentor Programme (CMP) helping the UK reseller community with engagement, planning and revenue generation in the SMB sector.

CMP is a one-to-one mentoring programme that helps resellers ascertain practical, all-around business development plans as well as proven sales techniques that are tailored to their specific capabilities and needs. Since its launch in February 2007, CMP has helped 18 partners establish and exceed new standards in Cisco sales excellence, delivering an average increase in Cisco revenues in excess of 100% year on year.

The programme is an important part of how Comstor develops engagement and revenue opportunities within the Cisco portfolios of security, voice, wireless and UC solutions. Customers say the programme delivers value-add beyond the more common transactional relationships typically found in distribution, serving as yet another platform for engagement between Comstor and its partners. CMP introduces partners to best practice disciplines and allows collaborative engagement with the Cisco SMB and channel teams.

Resellers are selected according to their potential for growth in the Cisco SMB marketplace—the only prerequisite is that they must sign up to a level of executive commitment. The program requires significant investment on the part of Comstor and Cisco, but the return is a focused community of highly skilled and supported partners who are able to grow in the lucrative Cisco SMB market.

Jon Pritchard, Vice President and Managing Director of Comstor Europe, commented: “As the name suggests, this is a mentoring programme which truly differentiates Comstor in its value add to our partners. We have seen significant increase in revenue and together with our OneVoice and OneDefense programs this has helped drive even greater loyalty to Comstor.”

Mike Smith, Two-Tier Channels/Distribution Regional Sales Manager, Cisco UK and Ireland, commented: '”The Mentor program delivered by Comstor has enabled Cisco to identify resellers with a real capacity for growth in the SMB sector which we strongly support”.
Jonathan Pickering, Managing Director of Block Solutions and a Mentor Programme participant commented; “As a growing Cisco partner, Comstor’s support and drive has been a major factor in establishing our reputation with Cisco. Our partnership with them has led to accreditation, training, professional services support and excellent account management. This has given us the ability to succeed in an increasingly competitive market.”

About Westcon Group
Westcon Group, Inc. is the leading specialty distributor in networking, security, mobility and convergence for leading technology vendors, including Cisco, Nortel, Avaya and Polycom. Through its Westcon and Comstor business practices, Westcon Group sells products and services to resellers, systems integrators and service providers. Westcon Group has particular expertise in the convergence of voice, data and video applications and technologies, including voice-over Internet protocol, or VoIP, security for networking and communications systems, remote access, Internet and e-business, virtual private networks, videoconferencing and wireless connectivity. For more information, visit www.westcongroup.com.