New distributor explodes onto the scene

A new distributor has launched in Australia with large-scale expansion plans.

Vadis Systems is a Sydney-based distributor and the brain-child of co-founders, Gerry Tucker and Sepp Stepanian, who have been developing the business for the past six months. Already it has six staff on-board and eight vendors including ThinkGrid, PineApp, BoxSentry, SlickAccess and Quipa.

Vadis’ business goal is to be a full service distributor business providing more than logistics and credit facilities, Tucker said.

In the short term, Vadis will limit its portfolio to 12 vendors in order to provide an adequate level of support and value-added services for each, but Tucker was interested in growing the business and is in discussions with additional vendors.

“We have seen vendors looking for their distributor partners to be an extension of their existing opportunities, and the channel is looking for value-adding activities,” he said. “We’ve got a focus on driving end-user lead generation activities and offering flexible financing to our channel.”

Vadis’ flexible financing is expected to be an especially appealing element of the distributor’s go-to-market strategy for SMBs, as smaller organisations continue to struggle with the tightening of credit following the global financial crisis. Vadis is being financed by a privately owned organisation. Tucker declined to disclose the name but said it was back by a large player.

“In the SMB space, we still see a real challenge in financing,” Tucker said. “There’s a change in the industry to move more towards an OpEx model of technology procurement, and we need to help with that transition.

“The feedback we’re getting overall is that while there’s still some uncertainty for the short to medium term, there is more confidence entering the market.”

Tucker hoped that improved confidence will help the start-up grow quickly, as he and his co-founder have large-scale expansion plans.

“We’re looking to enter the Victorian market first, followed by Queensland and Canberra soon after, by the end of quarter one next year,” he said. “We’ve got a number of resellers on-board already, though we can’t disclose specific numbers, but we are very keen to expand that base further.”

• Bookmark this page
• Share this article
  •  
  • facebook
  • slashdot
  • digg
  • Reddit
  • stumbleupon
  • linkedin
  • twitter
• Got more on this story? Email ARN
• Follow ARN on twitter

• Share
  Share this article

  •  google+
  • facebookfacebook
  • slashdotslashdot
  • diggdigg
  • RedditReddit
  • stumbleuponstumbleupon
  • linkedinlinkedin
  • twittertwitter
• print
• email
• Bookmark