The appointment by Alcatel-Lucent of Sphinx earlier this year was accompanied by the decision to drop incumbent distributors MTV Telecom and Rocom at the same time.
Since Sphinx's appointment in January 2007, the company says they have seen significant success in recruiting Alcatel-Lucent indirect business partners thanks to its proactive support and dedicated Alcatel-Lucent internal team. Sphinx's training and marketing initiatives for business partners have also enabled resellers to better compete for new business, ultimately helping to improve Alcatel-Lucent's own distribution revenues.
"Since moving over to Sphinx in January 2007, we've benefited greatly from the level of support received," said Chris Fargher, sales director at Liberty Bell, a Manchester-based Alcatel-Lucent convergence partner. "Sphinx's marketing resources have enabled us to launch our own marketing campaign, while the dedicated Alcatel-Lucent team ensures that there's always someone around to answer any queries. Overall we've been very impressed by the close relationship between the two companies, and their commitment to helping develop our business."
"We held concerns initially about such a radical change in Alcatel-Lucent's distribution strategy, particularly since Sphinx has no background in telephony, which is where our expertise lies. However, Sphinx has been able to allay our fears in all areas, and we actually feel better managed now than ever before," said Gordon Brown, managing director at GB Telecom, a Scottish-based Alcatel-Lucent partner. "So far 2007 has been an exceptional year of growth for us, so it's vital that we have a reliable distributor to support our business objectives - again, Sphinx has proven extremely capable in this respect."
Sphinx has recently expanded its remit with Alcatel-Lucent and can provide resellers with the complete range of Alcatel-Lucent voice, data and collaboration solutions. The company is now poised to embark on the next stage of the distribution strategy, which will involve looking to recruit new Alcatel-Lucent business partners to further improve UK channel coverage. Sphinx will also be expanding its dedicated Alcatel-Lucent team, to ensure that as recruitment moves forward, both existing and new business partners are able to receive a high level of training and support from the distributor.
"The distribution agreement with Sphinx has been an unqualified success from both a strategic and a financial perspective, and we're delighted to be in a position to start growing our channel coverage so soon after the initial appointment," said Doug Rodgers, enterprise and corporate sales sector leader for Alcatel-Lucent's enterprise activities UK&I. "Thanks to Sphinx's motivation and technical capabilities, it has never been easier to deal with Alcatel-Lucent. This is the reason why the partnership has resonated so well with our channel, and going forward, it presents a strong argument for new resellers to switch to Sphinx as well."