Dynabook increases digital support for partners

It has been a year since Dynabook signalled its ambition to drive more business through the channel and the vendor has taken steps to make life easier for partners.

The firm indicated last autumn that it wanted to re-engage with some key markets and partners as it looked to gain more market share in the mobile market. The plan was to build up the presence in verticals, including education and health, by working closely with partners operating in those areas.

Nick Offin, head of sales, marketing and operations at Dynabook Northern Europe, said efforts had been made to introduce some fresh elements to the partner programme, including an online deal registration tool and a rewards programme.

The firm has also stepped up its digital activity to make sure it can reach and support partners during these unprecedented times, with the coronavirus pandemic continuing to cause challenges in the market.

“What the past six months has shown us, and shown everyone in terms of the partners, is that we have to be more digitised and more online. So we have been doing a lot more online collateral and online media product videos and imagery for partners to download and access, particularly those who have dispersed their salesforce to work from home,” he said.

The vendor has been running webinars for partners and keeping communication open, and expects to keep that going until life returns to a more normal footing.

“We’ve been doing a lot more webinars and reaching out to people remotely and I think that is going to continue into the new year,” he added. “We are pushing out a lot more remote content and accessing people remotely.”

“What the past six months has shown us is that we have to be more digitised and more online. So we have been doing a lot more online collateral and online media product videos and imagery for partners to download and access”

Nick Offin, Dynabook

The Dynabook product range – laptops and its assisted reality dynaEdge offering – has met the needs of workers forced to operate remotely. From mid-March onwards, demand increased significantly as customers scrambled to get hold of technology to enable people to work and learn from home.

“From mid-March onwards, we saw phenomenal demand and saw our inventories in countries wiped out in two weeks as organisations scrambled to give their employees access to a product that they could use from home. That has further increased as we have gone through the past six months,” he said.

Offin said a large amount of government activity and investment in programmes, particularly in education and health, had added to demand.

Even without the pandemic, this would normally be a key quarter for those selling hardware. Offin said that for those in the mobility world, there are still busy weeks ahead, with Black Friday and Cyber Monday coming up, as well as the Christmas buying period.

“This year is slightly different because of the massive uptick in demand for mobility and there is some constraint in terms of componentry,” he said.

“Not withstanding that, Intel is launching Tiger Lake and those types of things, and we are bringing products out around that, with new high-end 13in and 14in devices,” he added.