The appointments reflect ZyXEL’s continuing investment in driving steady growth for its UK and European partners. Byford, who was formerly UK Channel Sales Manager, takes full responsibility for all partner relationships and business development throughout the UK and Ireland. James Harris will be working on the strategic business development of ZyXEL’s rapidly-growing Consumer products business throughout Europe. He previously held the position of Head of Product Management. Jon Pearce is tasked with the continued development of ZyXEL’s core switching, wireless and security solutions across the continent and was previously Market Development Manager for switching and wireless products.
The appointments are part the company’s continuing growth plans, says ZyXEL’s European President, Lee Marsden. “We are continuing to invest in our channel, both to increase the number of partners we engage with and grow sales for the whole of our partner network. Over the past year, the UK and Ireland operation has been leading the way, bringing forward new initiatives, recruiting and training new resellers, elevating existing partner to higher levels of accreditation and growing our overall business.
That’s resulted in strong growth and we want to capitalise on that success, both in the UK and Ireland and across Europe. By making these appointments and handing additional responsibility to this very competent trio of individuals, we’re putting those ambitions is into very capable hands.”
ZyXEL’s UK and Ireland sales in the first quarter of 2012 were up by more than 15 percent, in a networking market that was broadly flat. The improvement was mainly driven by increased sales of ZyXEL’s Unified Security Gateway (USG) appliances and 802.11n wireless access points and controllers. Sales have been given a further boost since then due to increased spending in the education and public sectors. A major product line refresh and additions to the company’s channel programme are expected to drive further growth during the second half of the year.
Earlier this year, ZyXEL appointed a dedicated UK and Ireland Account Managers for Channel and for Distribution. The company has steadily increased its headcount and now has a team of 18 working on the ground in the UK and providing local sales and technical support for partners. The company has been targeting opportunities and looking to sign additional partners in key markets such as hospitality, education and healthcare.
ZyXEL offers a broad selection of networking and communications solutions, including managed and unmanaged networking switches, wireless access points and routers and security appliances solutions, designed to meet the needs of the full range of end-user customers – from consumer and small-office home-office (SOHO) workers, to SMBs, large enterprises and service providers.