ACCOLADES - Software Distributor of the Year, Express Data

Express Data's David Gage

Accolades recognises the winners at this year's ARN IT Industry Awards - the best of the best. The distributor category was this year judged on a wide range of criteria, including credit, logistics, marketing and services initiatives, across hardware, software and solutions. This year’s best distributor initiative award went to a company that set up a tool to directly assist the resellers in their marketing initiatives.

For the fourth year in a row Express Data has gained validation as ARN’s Software Distributor of the Year.

Its newly installed CEO, David Gage, put this current win down to the distributor’s mass focus in the software space and investment in providing software advice.

Some of its top vendors in the software arena include Microsoft, Symantec, Autodesk, CA and Citrix.

But this is not the only award Express Data won. This year, it also picked up Best Distributor Initiative of the Year and was also highly commended as Best Sustainability Distributor of the Year.

In relation to winning the Best Distributor Initiative, Gage said it was key part of its value offering to resellers.

Why did they win this award? Gage said it had to do with the way it assists resellers in building their business and complementing their marketing efforts using information it has collected on their behalf.

“We’ve got a whole range of activities underway to make sure we continue to add value to our partners,” he said. “The most important thing is to make sure we assist partners in remaining profitable.”

Some of the activities include a Cloud roadshow that it’s launching across the country to assist partners in building their cloud capability and turning it into a profitable business for partners.

For the year ahead, Gage said the company would continue to look at adding new vendors to its portfolio that align with its strategy.

Express Data’s volume distribution arm, Expressonline, recently purchased Simms International and the integration process will be keeping the distributor pretty busy during the next few months.

“We’ve been pretty busy with the Simms integration into the Expressonline business and we’re really happy with the way that has gone to date,” he said. “Often when you acquire a business, it causes a bit of short term pain, but I’m happy to say it’s going well and building nicely.”

In addition to winning the Distributor Initiative of the Year award, Express Data won the Software Distributor of the Year category.