Distributor winners announced for ‘EMEA Channel Academy: 2016 Awards’ at DISTREE EMEA

by Stuart Wilson, Wednesday 2 March 2016

The ‘EMEA Channel Academy: 2016 Awards’ were held in conjunction with regional channel event DISTREE EMEA 2016. These included a series of 11 awards for technology and consumer electronics (CE) distributors, with the winners announced at a Gala Dinner at Salle des Etoiles in Monaco held on Friday February 26th.

A total of nine distributors received awards with Ingram Micro and Tech Data winning two apiece, and 2BY2, ABC Data, Asbis, Comtrade, EET Group, Esquire and Marvel winning one each.

Taking place for the eighth consecutive year in 2016, this year’s awards saw a record number of technology retailer, reseller and vendor executives vote to select their outstanding distributors by region, based on business performance during the last 12 months.

Liam McSherry, Marketing Director at DISTREE Events, said: “We want to congratulate all of this year’s winning distributors on their achievement."

"With more than 4000 votes from vendors and channel customers counted and verified across EMEA, this was the largest vote in the history of the EMEA Channel Academy distributor awards,” he added.

2016 winners

The awards were voted for by executives from retailers, resellers and vendors across EMEA, who were instructed to vote only in regions where they operated, or had in-depth knowledge of the distribution landscape. The full list of winners by region was as follows:

ESQUIRE TECHNOLOGIES - AFRICA: DISTRIBUTOR OF THE YEAR

ASBIS – MIDDLE EAST & NORTH AFRICA: DISTRIBUTOR OF THE YEAR

ABC DATA – CENTRAL & EASTERN EUROPE: DISTRIBUTOR OF THE YEAR

MARVEL - RUSSIA & CIS: DISTRIBUTOR OF THE YEAR

COMTRADE - SOUTH EAST EUROPE: DISTRIBUTOR OF THE YEAR

INGRAM MICRO - SOUTHERN EUROPE: DISTRIBUTOR OF THE YEAR

EET GROUP - NORTHERN EUROPE: DISTRIBUTOR OF THE YEAR

INGRAM MICRO - DACH: DISTRIBUTOR OF THE YEAR

TECH DATA - FRANCE: DISTRIBUTOR OF THE YEAR

2BY2 - BENELUX: DISTRIBUTOR OF THE YEAR

TECH DATA - UK & IRELAND: DISTRIBUTOR OF THE YEAR

Vital role

McSherry added: “Voters were instructed to assess distributors on the overall quality of their business performance during the last 12 months and their skills as a distribution partner. We asked them not to simply pick the biggest distributor in each region, but to select the companies that had impressed them most during the last year with their operations and go-to-market approach.”

Online voting for the ‘EMEA Channel Academy: 2016 Awards’ for distributors opened on January 18th 2016 and closed on February 17th 2016, with an average of more than 140 votes cast each day. The result in many regions was extremely close with only a small percentage difference between the winner and the distributors in second and third place.

McSherry concluded: “The number of votes cast and the close results in many regions demonstrates the vital role of distributors in EMEA technology channels and the highly competitive nature of the sector. Planning is already underway for the 2017 awards and full details of the voting process will be announced later this year.”

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