At its recently held Channel Gala Dinner, Lexmark International reaffirmed its commitment to its South African channel and applauded the efforts of those who have over-performed in the last year.
The evening, hosted at Summer Place in Johannesburg, provided the platform for the company to announce Awards of Excellence to those partners that had contributed to the Lexmark business in a substantial way. Winners of these awards included Mass Discounters (Game & Dion), Incredible Connection, as well as Kolok, Advanced Consumables Technology (ACT) and Sahara Computers. Says Hans Horn, Managing Director of Lexmark SA: "Our partners have always played a critical role in our success, and it is based on this, that we at Lexmark feel it is important to applaud their success. This year has been a memorable year for both us and our partners and there is no better way to thank one than to acknowledge their achievements and commitment."
In addition to the awards, nine top hardware dealers nationally managed to reach stringent sales targets set over a six-month period, qualifying them for an incentive trip to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in September.
Some of the milestones for Lexmark over the last year were highlighted by Horn. These include the success of the company`s corporate social responsibility programme Siyaphambili, the appointment of well-known black executive Sello Rasethaba to the local board of directors, the graduation of the Torque IT Career Campus (formerly known as the Zone) students on the company`s learnership programme and the employment of three of these students, as well as a record growth of 37% in the number of Baby Days accumulated by the company for its Cotlands CRIB initiative.
"This has been a very exciting year for Lexmark. We have very successfully launched new products in various product segments, especially our All-in-One inkjet business, which has grown substantially, showing a massive uptake and market acceptance in the SMB sector. Lexmark has also starting making good inroads into the government sector. Internally, we are proud of the finalisation of the implementation of our JD Edwards system, giving us greater control over our sales, warehousing, distribution and financials - providing us with an excellent level of transparency.
"But all of these things would not have been possible without the support and loyalty of our partners, and it is on the back of this that we would like to reaffirm our commitment to the local channel. With their help, we hope to reap even greater success in 2005; success we all benefit from," ends Horn.
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Lexmark International, Inc is a leading developer, manufacturer and supplier of printing solutions -- including laser and inkjet printers, associated supplies and services - for offices and homes in more than 150 countries. Founded in 1991, Lexmark reported more than $4.7 billion of revenue in 2003, and can be found on the Internet at www.lexmark.com.
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