ShoreTel’s new EMEA head is looking to recruit channel partners with public sector and financial services expertise in a bid to become the mid-market’s leading IP telephony vendor.

John Howard arrived at ShoreTel from Avaya last month. He assumes the role of EMEA managing director, replacing Mark Swendsen, who has returned to his native US to take up a global role with the firm.

Howard claimed ShoreTel was set to boost the channel by making a “major investment” in lead generation over the next few months. He added that he had three top priorities for the immediate future, the first being to maintain high standards of customer satisfaction.

“We also want to expand our channel coverage to have the right geographical and vertical coverage,” he said. “We want to recruit partners that focus on government, NHS and finance and, technically, resellers that are focused on call centre and unified communications.”

He added that the final strategic prong was to beef up the ShoreTel brand in this country and across the EMEA region.

Director of EMEA marketing Tom Perry said the vendor was quickly gaining traction with UK VARs.

“We are attracting channel partners from other vendors and that is very tough to do,” he added.

Grahame Smee, managing director of ShoreTel distributor Cohort Technology, said: “ShoreTel’s next step is to focus on specific verticals and we are helping it to identify the right resellers.”

Another week goes by and another bank scrounges more money from the government or some failed banking executive is given another bonus as thanks for the sterling job they have done over the past year.

Yet as we all know, banks are still not lending to anyone and thousands of firms are struggling to survive as the cash flow starts to dry up.
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Cohort Technology, the leading distributor and channel services company has today announced a series of financial products in conjunction with ShoreTel Financial Services.

“These additional sales aids will allow our partners to compete in a very competitive market and offer some welcome financial relief to their customers” explained Grahame Smee, Managing Director of Cohort Technology.

“This flexible range of services gives the end-user multiple options including, Interest Free payments over 2 or 3 years, Payment holidays and the ability to wrap all associated services into a single finance package. In these times of strict budget restraints, it is up to the channel as a whole to be both inventive and supportive” he continued.

 
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Basingstoke based Cohort Technology has recently been awarded EMEA Distributor of the Year 2008 by Shoretel and also been appointed as the first Training Centre outside the US.

Grahame Smee, MD Cohort Technology commented, “We are extremely pleased at our our latest accreditation for our training division. We have worked closely with ShoreTel to ensure our trainers provide the same high level of tuition and coaching that Shoretel have given in the past. The provision of quality, vendor endorsed training is part of our continued support of our channels and the value-add model in general. The VoIP market is growing at an exciting rate and with the backing of Shoretel we are in an ideal position to help all our partner benefit through education and our other support offerings.”

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ShoreTel has hailed distributor Cohort Technology’s efforts in becoming the first company to pass its new advanced training certification and is hoping more partners will follow suit.

Europe’s first ShoreTel certified training centre will now be based at Cohort’s headquarters in Basingstoke. It will offer the Implementing ShoreTel IP System training course for resellers. Cohort’s managing director Grahame Smee said the growth of ShoreTel’s UK channel had necessitated the opening of the centre.

Read More on the Channelweb site.