“They have embarrassed us and we apologise to our customers for not being able to support what we promised. We have been let down by the supplier and I am very unhappy by their style of business. Mitel gave us no warning they were shutting down their products to us.
“As a distributor of the Mitel 3300 ICP products, Nimans has not been advised as to the service and sales support strategy that Mitel may or may not have in place, and therefore feel it is inappropriate to sell the large Mitel stock holding we currently hold.
“As a professional organisation dedicated to serving the customer, we feel that shipping unsupported stock is not the best way forward for our established customer base.
We are committed to delivering solutions to all our resellers, rather than despatching products with no succession plan implemented by a supplier.
“As Nimans has no ties with Mitel in Europe with regards to distribution, we also feel a short term, 'sell our stock strategy', is not a valid option, as this will create longer term issues for our customers for the sake of short term profit.
“We offer a wide range of telecommunication systems from manufacturers who are dedicated to supporting the channel - and our highly trained product specialists will only be too pleased to discuss any queries that any disgruntled business partners may have, ensuring they can still deliver the right solutions their customers demand.”
Niman told Comms Business Magazine, “As the number one distributor in the UK the decision by Mitel to remove the 3300 ICP from our portfolio made very little difference to the company. However, I feel for Mitel’s number one distributor as it may prove very disruptive for their business.”
Although not confirmed, Comms Business Magazine would draw a conclusion from the Nimans statement that they are about to return any Mitel stocks they currently hold to the vendor rather that sell them in the channel.