The agreement means that Alcatel-Lucent business partners lacking the engineering skills to deliver complex convergence solutions can now enlist technical assistance through Sphinx. Under the terms of the partnership, Sphinx will be able to draw on the expertise and resources of Redbridge, a systems integrator and Alcatel-Lucent premium business partner, in order to successfully implement end-user deployments based around the Alcatel-Lucent OmniPCX Enterprise, OmniPCX Office and Extended Communications Server products.
Sphinx will be looking to establish further agreements with additional Alcatel-Lucent premium business partners over the next few months, to address the full portfolio of Alcatel-Lucent communications solutions.
This deal is designed to further boost Alcatel-Lucent’s UK distribution business. In 2007, Sphinx’s first year as the company’s convergence distributor, Alcatel-Lucent achieved double-digit percentage growth for its UK enterprise distribution business, compared to 2006. It has also posted record monthly distribution revenues for January 2008.
“The Alcatel-Lucent and Sphinx partnership has achieved strong results in its first year, based largely on a combined effort to encourage more business partners to upskill and take on a broader range of convergence solutions,” said Mark Hatton, managing director at Sphinx. “More and more resellers are recognising the margins on offer in this area, and while many of them have the sales expertise, they may not currently have the technical skill-sets required. As a value-added distributor, we’re committed to ensuring that these organisations are given the support they need to succeed. The service agreement with Redbridge allows us do this, and helps us to forge new channel partnerships in the process.”
In addition to providing technical assistance, Sphinx is actively working with Alcatel-Lucent partners to develop and execute joint marketing campaigns and initiatives, in order to further facilitate growth within its existing partner base. Sphinx is also looking to strategically recruit additional Alcatel-Lucent convergence partners to target mid-market enterprises across the financial services, creative services, government, health and education verticals, amongst others.
“We’ve experienced a huge increase in our distribution business during 2007, and the record month posted in January has set the course for an even more successful 2008,” said David Parker, VP enterprise for Alcatel-Lucent UK and Ireland. “Sphinx continues to be proactive in its efforts to support and develop our channels – as a consequence, more business partners are able to market and deliver converged solutions, and we’re now looking to augment this growth by recruiting new mid-market partners to enhance our existing market coverage.”