Khwaja Saifuddin, the Senior Sales Director for South Asia, the Middle East and Africa at WD speaks about the company’s participation at GITEX this year.
Are you participating at GITEX Shopper or GITEX Technology Week this year?
Yes, we are pleased to announce that we will be participating at both GITEX Shopper and GITEX Technology Week this year. At GITEX Shopper, we are collaborating with key retailers to showcase our latest array of market-leading storage solutions to the public. At GITEX Technology Week, the highlight of our presence will be the launch of new storage solutions.
What is your theme going to be for GITEX Shopper and GITEX Technology Week?
With GITEX Shopper being focused on the modern-day consumer, there is no better time and place for us to introduce the public to our latest consumer solutions, namely the My Passport Wireless Pro and the My Cloud Pro Series, geared towards a new generation of always-on, always-connected and constantly connected consumers. Our new motto for our valued customers is to ‘Keep it coming’, and that is exactly what the My Passport Wireless Pro and the My Cloud Pro Series will enable them to do.
With its ease of use, unique OS, large capacity, data security and compatibility with the Adobe Creative Cloud, the My Cloud Pro Series enables effective team collaboration and seamless transfer of content between devices. The new series brings signature WD reliability and speed, regardless of where the user is, to the fore.
What technology and market trends have you seen this year on the Middle East market?
As connectivity and data creation pick up pace in the region, businesses of all sizes, including SMEs, will need the most innovative and efficient storage solutions to support their operations. WD, with its market-leading enterprise-class hard drives, purpose-built for intensive and round-the-clock use in servers and workstations, is ideally placed to help organizations realize this key objective.
The storage market is witnessing paradigm shifts due to the continual penetration of smartphones. Today, users create and share content while on the move and need not be restricted to one place to do the same. They expect quick, seamless and safe access to their content round the clock. Consumers have started to realize the importance of backing up their valuable data. Therefore, the modern-day consumer is influenced not only by information creation concerns, but storage concerns as well. This indicates that the storage market is slated for a great degree of growth in the Middle East.
What sort of channel engagements have you planned for GITEX?
The cornerstone of our channel strategy is the myWD program and WD University. At WD, we believe that our success linked to that of our partners and so we believe in supporting them any way we can. The myWD program has grown to over 25,000 partners worldwide, spanning 190 countries and is available in 17 languages.
We ensure that registration takes place in the country where the partner is primarily based. WD is proving its commitment to invest in the channel by presenting our valued partners with opportunities to build their business in the growing storage applications of NAS, surveillance and data centres.
WD offers on-demand online product training through WD University. WD University is a valuable resource that helps make it easier to sell WD products and to stay up-to-date with product information in order to build the requisite knowledge and expertise.
We believe that educating is one of the aspects that sets the WD partner programme apart from our competitors. This way, the partner is made aware of the value of the product and can then deliver based on specific customer needs. This is highly beneficial to the partner in terms of profitability as they don’t have to compete on price, but instead understand the product’s value.
How does GITEX Shopper and GITEX Technology Week fit into your overall regional strategies?
Being the premier IT and technology conference in the region which not only brings together companies from the region but across the world, GITEX is the ideal platform for us to bring our message of the right storage solutions and ‘Keep it coming’ to the public, in addition to showcasing our unique range of leading storage solutions. With a growth in storage needs in the near future, we foresee a lot of opportunities in the coming years and GITEX is the event that brings users and solutions-providers together.
Note: The article was updated at 12:50 am on 5th October 2016
