Opengear to 'Take Channel to Next Level'

Opengear’s channel manager for Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) has revealed plans to increase the company’s exposure within in the region.

Mark Hughes says the network access and automation vendor brought him on in January to provide structure to the firm’s channel operations.

Opengear’s Mark Hughes

“The company is 100-percent channel-focused [but] has been using the channel to sell through, rather than sell with. My appointment comes as the company is looking to step up to the next level,” Hughes exclusively told Channel Futures.

Hughes said the firm wants to move beyond a transactional relationship with partners. He wants to work more closely with those that “have demonstrated their value in the past and are willing to work with us going forward.

“If you want to reach the top enterprise customers, you have to be working with the top enterprise reseller partners. We have sold through them because their customers have asked for Opengear product, but not regularly or consistently.”

Hughes also heads up efforts to recruit five to six resellers in each of Opengear’s key countries within the region. This will increase its core channel community to 50, with several other specialist relationships across EMEA.

Exclusive Networks Partnership

Earlier this year, Opengear expanded its relationship with distributor Exclusive Networks, which previously covered southern Europe. It now helps the company expand its reach in DACH (Austria, Germany and Switzerland) and the U.K.

“We’re going to have a focused channel. Outside of that we have a run rate channel that we drive more by distribution while we focus on larger enterprise revenue opportunities,” said Hughes.

Hughes said he is in talks with partners. Opengear will soon put a plan in place to determine which might be awarded premier status in one year.

The exec said initially there will be “no real revenue goals” in EMEA, but this will change going forward.

“Our U.S. colleagues have a more mature channel and they have started putting revenue goals in in place. We will get to that, but we’re a good number of years behind our U.S. colleagues,” he said.

Opengear specializes in “out-of-band” technology, which provides an alternative path to devices at remote sites when the primary network is down. This allows administrators to securely monitor, access and manage all devices without impacting normal operations.

Prior to joining Opengear Hughes was EMEA partner manager for rival out-of-band firm, Lantronix.

Digi International, the provider of IoT connectivity solutions, bought Opengear for USD $140 million last fall.