EMC Southern Africa has appointed Claude Schuck as channel manager.
Formerly head of Dell's large enterprise business unit, Schuck has almost two decades' experience in the IT industry, including many years in the channel arena.
Schuck replaces Nick Christodoulou who recently left EMC Southern Africa to join Symantec as its country manager for SA.
EMC says Schuck's work experience includes managing multiple customer and channel segments within different organisations, as well as developing various go-to-market sectors, their influences and drivers.
Schuck has led numerous teams across various IT organisations, earning a track record for delivering results, the storage solutions vendor says. At Dell, he spent nine years in various roles including setting up its channel business in SA as well as running the large enterprise business unit.
Schuck holds a B.Comm from Unisa and has gained the rest of his extensive expertise on the ground during almost 20 years in the IT industry.
"EMC has a strong future with its focus on big data and its ability to accelerate the organisation's journey to cloud computing, it represents the future direction of the industry. I'm joining an organisation with an extremely mature channel programme which is enhanced and strengthened on an on-going basis," he says.
"The EMC Business Partner programme is well-known in the industry and attracts the high calibre of partners we need to succeed. My aim is to focus on customer intimacy and delivering customer excellence and value at every level."
He believes this can be achieved by empowering colleagues and individuals in the channel to execute the company's values and strategy. "By building up rapport and strong relationships with customers, we will be able to take that extra step in customer value," he adds.
EMC points out that business partners are critical to the company's ability to grow its footprint in southern Africa and relationships with its partners are based on trust and an in-depth knowledge, which enables business-critical solutions to be delivered to customers. The overarching goal is to further expand EMC's market share throughout the territory, the vendor states.
EMC's commitment to the channel includes becoming the first IT vendor in SA to specify that its customers in both the mid-market and SME segments are channel-only engagements, it notes, adding that this will avoid taking any direct business in partner-found or under-penetrated account opportunities.
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