Latest news with #Westcon-Comstor
Techday NZ
3 days ago
- Business
- Techday NZ
Westcon-Comstor & Cohesity boost AI security in New Zealand
Westcon-Comstor has announced an expansion of its partnership with Cohesity to address the increasing demand for advanced cybersecurity and AI-powered data protection solutions in New Zealand. The collaboration comes as the New Zealand cybersecurity market is forecast to reach USD $760.80 million by 2029 with an annual growth rate of 7.64 percent. The market's growth has been driven by a rise in ransomware, phishing, and malware attacks, as well as compliance requirements under regulatory frameworks such as the Privacy Act 2020. These factors are leading organisations to adopt more robust and AI-driven approaches to data protection and cybersecurity. Cohesity provides an AI-powered data security and management platform that has been identified as crucial for organisations aiming to guard against modern digital threats. The platform combines advanced threat detection and response with simplified data backup, recovery, and governance to assist in protecting companies from cyber incidents. Westcon-Comstor's partnership with Cohesity allows it to offer solutions that combine large-scale partner enablement with AI-powered data protection technology. This, according to both organisations, ensures local businesses can safeguard assets, remain compliant with regulations, and enhance digital resilience amid an increasingly uncertain cyber environment. "Cybersecurity is no longer a back-office function, it's a boardroom priority," said Dave Rosenberg, Managing Director, Westcon-Comstor in New Zealand. "Our partnership with Cohesity enables us to deliver cutting-edge, AI-powered data security solutions that align with the strategic priorities of local businesses." Rosenberg highlighted that Cohesity's platform integrates with Westcon-Comstor's existing portfolio of vendors, enabling the provision of secure and scalable solutions for partners. He said the platform can enhance data resilience, streamline operations, and support hybrid cloud strategies, offering value across their network of clients and stakeholders. As part of the collaboration, Westcon-Comstor will use initiatives including the Imagine Series and other vendor showcase events to demonstrate Cohesity's capabilities. These activities are aimed at informing both channel partners and end users, broadening awareness and understanding of data security needs and solutions in New Zealand. Cohesity's involvement as a recent sponsor of the Imagine Series was noted as part of the companies' joint effort to promote digital resilience across the region. "As New Zealand organisations navigate an increasingly complex threat landscape, the need for integrated, AI-powered data security has never been greater," said Paul Henaghan, Regional Director and MD ANZ at Cohesity. "Our expanded collaboration with Westcon-Comstor reflects our shared commitment to delivering enterprise-grade solutions that strengthen cyber resilience, support regulatory compliance, and ensure rapid recovery in the face of disruption. Together, we are well-positioned to help businesses across New Zealand safeguard their most critical digital assets with confidence and clarity." Cohesity's platform is designed to integrate with other technologies, allowing partners to develop comprehensive security strategies that also address data management requirements. As the shift toward digital-first operations accelerates, the organisations believe there is an increasing necessity for advanced tools, training, and technological support that can help customers in the public and private sectors manage and secure their information assets effectively. The partnership between Westcon-Comstor and Cohesity places a strong emphasis on education and capability-building across the local ecosystem. By featuring Cohesity's solutions alongside its other vendor offerings, Westcon-Comstor aims to help organisations in New Zealand achieve greater operational efficiency and compliance while responding to evolving cybersecurity challenges. Increasing regulatory scrutiny, combined with a shift in the threat landscape, is prompting many enterprises in New Zealand to reprioritise how they approach cybersecurity at a strategic level. The companies state that the expanded partnership will focus on providing organisations with access to scalable, AI-driven solutions that can respond to new risks as they emerge. Westcon-Comstor and Cohesity have emphasised their commitment to supporting partners and customers in New Zealand with the resources required to adapt to the ongoing digital transformation. This will include the deployment of integrated technologies, educational initiatives, and expert support aimed at sustaining digital resilience in a data-driven and threat-prone environment.
Channel Post MEA
4 days ago
- Business
- Channel Post MEA
Westcon-Comstor Empowers Partners To Excel In Evolving Digital Landscape
Rakesh Parbhoo, Executive Vice President, Middle East and Africa (MEA) at Westcon-Comstor shares insights into the strategies and initiatives the company, which recently celebrated its 40th anniversary, is adopting to empower its partners. He also explains how distributors are redefining value and differentiation to stay relevant in the backdrop of growth of hyperscaler marketplaces. How would you describe the constantly evolving landscape of distribution (Global and the Middle East And Africa)? For me, both globally and regionally we're at one of the most exciting and transformative points in the history of distribution and the channel more broadly. As cloud and AI revolutionise how businesses operate, and with the shift to recurring revenue models based on software, services and subscriptions, we at Westcon-Comstor feel better placed than ever to add value to partners and vendors. I believe that, in 2025, distributors are probably more accurately described as solution architects, technology aggregators and growth enablers. Our role today is to unlock new opportunities for partners and vendors, helping them navigate a changing market and new technologies through our value-added services and our data-driven approach. In my opinion, distribution has never occupied such a central and strategic role in the channel and the wider technology ecosystem. What are some of the challenges are you facing today and how do you intend to overcome them? Like every international business, we are keeping a close eye on the global macroeconomic picture and international trading conditions. At Westcon-Comstor we believe distribution has an important role to play in helping partners and vendors navigate change, particularly in times of economic uncertainty, and this is something we're committed to delivering on. As a distributor it's our responsibility to consistently demonstrate to partners and vendors the value we add. I'm not sure I'd describe this as a challenge, but it's certainly something we're mindful of at all levels of the business – hence our mantra of 'partner success, it's what we do'. This focusing on demonstrating value was also the rationale for our Future Ready initiative, which we launched in June to mark our 40th birthday as a business. The Future Ready initiative will see us explore key trends that are reshaping the channel through research, interviews with partners and vendors and insights from channel leaders, the aim being to enable partners and vendors to stay ahead of rapid technological change and evolving market dynamics. In terms of commercials, one trend we're seeing is a greater emphasis amongst vendors on us generating and evidencing distribution-led business, namely deals and transactions in which we have played a leading role. This is a big focus for us moving forward. Given the steady rise of B2B and B2C e-commerce, which direction is distribution heading? Distribution and the user journey around how partners and vendors engage with us is increasingly digital. Westcon-Comstor's PartnerCentral marketplace, for example, enables partners to discover, compare, procure and manage multi-vendor solutions in a frictionless and efficient self-service experience. PartnerCentral simplifies the procurement and management of recurring subscription and as-a-service offers at scale, making it easier to provide these to end customers. A key strength of e-commerce platforms is of course the immensely valuable data they bring, and this is an area where we're particularly proud of our capabilities at Westcon-Comstor. On the one hand we have Intelligent Demand, our proprietary, insights-driven lead generation programme that utilises predictive analytics to drive growth, enhance customer lifetime value and identify new markets for partners and vendors. We also have Partner Insights, which sits within PartnerCentral and allows partners to monitor key performance metrics, embedding a data-driven approach to performance analysis. Key use cases include the ability to monitor how hardware versus software and services spend with Westcon-Comstor is evolving over time. Partners can also compare growth and performance by vendor against industry benchmarks. What best can be done to ensure sustainable channel business and decent margins? Services is a high-growth, high-margin area that we are targeting as an area of focus for us and our partners over the next year and beyond. More broadly the shift to lifecycle selling and recurring revenue models is helping to ensure the long-term sustainability and viability of channel businesses. In our latest financial year recurring sales – for example from software and services – represented 66% of gross sales, up from 60% the previous year, as we evolve in line with the transformation journey being pursued by our partners and vendors. Distribution was historically a low-margin industry but as the sophistication of our offering grows we have an opportunity to change this by delivering ever-greater value. In the backdrop of growth of hyperscaler marketplaces, how are distributors redefining value and differentiation to stay relevant in the rapidly changing IT landscape. I'm proud to say that we recognised the strategic significance of this trend early, which is why last year we led the way in distribution with the launch of our AWS Marketplace programme. Based on the AWS Designated Seller of Record (DSOR) model, our programme unlocks new growth opportunities for partners by providing a streamlined and simplified route to transacting on AWS Marketplace – enabling them to sell where their customers want to buy. By harnessing the programme, partners can purchase and sell vendors' software solutions from Westcon-Comstor via private AWS Marketplace listings and sell directly to their customers in a frictionless, end-to-end process entirely within AWS Marketplace. Partners can access our advisory services and are supported by a dedicated team of specialists in the Middle East and beyond. The new team is focused purely on enabling partners to grow their AWS Marketplace business. Meanwhile the programme allows participating vendors including Check Point Software, Cisco, CrowdStrike, F5, Infoblox, Juniper Networks, Vectra AI and Zscaler to rapidly scale their cloud marketplace business. Our programme is empowering partners to win new customers and grow revenue with existing customers by seizing the AWS Marketplace opportunity, while securing the role of the channel in the cloud marketplace economy. Distribution is changing, and by using our expertise to help partners and vendors to maximise their AWS Marketplace growth we're showing the central, strategic role that we as a distributor play in today's technology ecosystem. Recently your Cisco-specialist arm, Comstor, launched a white-label managed SOC service for Cisco partners. What was the rationale behind the launch? The driver for the launch was partner demand. Many of our Cisco partners have been asking for this and we're really excited about announcing its availability. The opportunity in this space for partners is huge. The managed XDR (Extended Detection and Response) market is set to be worth between $8 billion and $10 billion by 2030 in EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa) alone, as end-user businesses seek more comprehensive threat detection and response solutions to ensure compliance while handling an increasing volume of security alerts and growing attack surfaces. Establishing a SOC involves significant initial investment and ongoing annualised costs. By deploying the Managed XDR SOC from Comstor, Cisco partners can save on these costs while sidestepping the technical and operational challenges associated with SOC development and maintenance, which can typically run to millions of dollars. This is the first managed SOC offering launched by Westcon-Comstor and the first to utilise Cisco XDR.
Channel Post MEA
24-06-2025
- Business
- Channel Post MEA
Westcon-Comstor Celebrates 40th Anniversary
Westcon-Comstor has shared a series of industry trends that will define its focus in the coming months and years as it marks its 40th birthday and commits to helping create a future-ready IT channel. Founded on 24 June 1985, today Westcon-Comstor employs about 3,700 people globally and achieved record gross sales of US $5.24 billion in its latest financial year (FY25). The distributor has published the channel trends as part of the launch of its Future Ready initiative, which is designed to enable channel partners in the Middle East and Africa (MEA) region and beyond to stay ahead of rapid technological change and evolving market dynamics. The key trends identified by Westcon-Comstor as driving the growth and transformation of the channel are: MSPs and specialised partners are emerging as hybrid's real winners Hybrid enterprise environments will prove to be a goldmine, but only for managed service providers (MSPs) and other partners who succeed in building and selling services that allow them to own the 'glue' layer spanning automation, security, governance and data flow between platforms. 2. Cybersecurity is now a business function, not just an IT concern Cybersecurity has outgrown the office of the CISO (Chief Information Security Officer) and is now part of the CFO's risk model, the COO's continuity plan and the CEO's brand reputation calculus. The most effective channel partners won't just sell security tools, they'll help align security with enterprise priorities, from compliance and business resilience to risk management and M&A readiness. 3. AI-driven data orchestration is redefining the role of the channel As AI becomes the brain behind data movement, the channel is evolving and partners are transitioning from infrastructure enablers to intelligence enablers. The smart money is now focused on building adaptive data fabrics that learn, respond and optimise in real time. The partners who successfully ride the AI wave will be those who master the intersection of AI models, data governance and multi-environment orchestration to deliver not just efficiency, but foresight. 4. The cloud channel is here, and it looks very different Success in the cloud era requires new motions, new models and new skills. Cloud marketplaces, partner-to-partner (P2P) selling, usage-based billing and ecosystem co-selling are transforming how the channel works. Partners must now embed themselves into hyperscaler programmes, drive consumption growth and deliver value-added services. The key to success for partners in this new world is to view hyperscalers as platforms, not suppliers or rivals. 5. AI Is forcing a network rethink, and the channel holds the blueprint As enterprises embrace AI workloads, real-time data and distributed compute, static networks are no longer fit for purpose. The opportunity for the channel lies in helping customers adopt intent-based networking, zero-trust architectures and network observability at scale. This is the beginning of a new arms race, and the partners who triumph will be those who can design networks that think, heal and secure themselves. 6. The SMB digital wave is the channel's next global growth engine With rising cybersecurity risks, cloud-native apps, AI tools and remote work becoming baseline requirements, millions of previously underserved small and mid-sized businesses (SMBs) are entering a new phase of digital urgency. Channel partners who deliver repeatable, scalable and automated solutions – backed by vendor support and distributor orchestration – will unlock a vast, margin-rich opportunity. 40 and Future Ready Westcon-Comstor will be exploring these trends in more detail as part of its Future Ready programme through research, interviews with partners and vendors and insights from channel leaders. 'Marking 40 years is a proud moment for everyone at Westcon-Comstor and is an opportunity to both reflect and look to the future,' said David Grant, CEO at Westcon-Comstor. 'Our channel partners and vendors are operating in a rapidly changing market while pursuing their own business transformation journeys. Our focus is on helping them become future ready, so they are prepared for tomorrow's challenges as well as today's. Our Future Ready initiative is the perfect way to spotlight our heritage along with our forward-facing priorities and our dedication to enabling sustainable, long-term success across the channel.' 'We believe being future-ready means staying close to our partners' and vendors' realities, investing in the right tools, platforms and capabilities, and keeping our eyes on the horizon,' added David Grant. 'This anniversary is a foundation for what comes next as we look to accelerate our journey to becoming the world's leading specialist value-added distributor across cybersecurity, networking and cloud.' 'Our 40th birthday as a business comes at a time of rapid change for the IT channel and the broader tech ecosystem across the MEA region,' said Rakesh Parbhoo, Executive Vice President, Middle East and Africa at Westcon-Comstor. 'Through our Future Ready programme, we're making it our mission to ensure that our partners and vendors stay ahead of the curve by seizing the opportunities presented by the trends and growth drivers we've identified. As we look to the future, distribution will continue to play an increasingly strategic role in driving partner and vendor success. I believe Westcon-Comstor is well equipped to be at the forefront of this shift.'
Techday NZ
09-06-2025
- Business
- Techday NZ
Westcon-Comstor & Juniper boost Starship with sales support
Westcon-Comstor New Zealand and Juniper Networks have announced a partnership to donate a portion of sales to Starship Children's Hospital. Under the 'Sales that Transform Lives' initiative, Westcon-Comstor will donate 1% of every Mist sale in an effort to support children's healthcare needs through Starship, New Zealand's national children's hospital. The partnership continues Westcon-Comstor New Zealand's efforts to support Starship Children's Hospital. Since 2022, Westcon-Comstor has collaborated with the Starship Foundation—a non-profit organisation supporting the hospital—to raise more than NZD $68,000 through a range of activities such as fundraising events, baking competitions, team building sessions, fun runs, and other campaigns. Funds raised under the new initiative will assist with acquiring lifesaving equipment, supporting critical care services, advancing medical research, and providing family support initiatives. Sales initiative The arrangement specifies that Westcon-Comstor will donate 1% of earnings from the Juniper Mist product line on each sale. This is expected to continue the company's pledge to business initiatives that include charitable giving alongside commercial operations. Dave Rosenberg, Managing Director, Westcon-Comstor, New Zealand, commented on the company's intent to integrate purposeful actions with business operations. He said: "Partnering with Juniper Networks to support Starship Children's Hospital reflects our deep commitment to doing business with purpose. Contributing a portion of our sales is just one way we aim to give back, but more importantly, we hope it encourages others in our community to get behind this meaningful cause and help make a real impact for Kiwi kids." Juniper Networks is joining Westcon-Comstor in this effort, linking the role of technology with broader social outcomes. Ken Lord, Country Manager, New Zealand, Juniper Networks, said: "At Juniper Networks, we believe technology has the power to do more than build networks – it's about connecting people, empowering communities and creating meaningful impact. We're proud to partner with Westcon-Comstor in support of Starship Children's Hospital, with proceeds from our sales directly contributing to the wellbeing of children across New Zealand. Together, we're making every connection count while turning innovation into purposeful action and helping those who need it most." Community impact The fundraising activities correspond to Westcon-Comstor's global Responsible Business strategy, which is structured around commitments to people, the planet, and communities. According to the company, these pillars guide its decision-making processes to ensure positive social impact forms part of its business model. The Starship Foundation reports that demand for services has risen, with a 13% increase in children visiting the hospital over the past year. Jo Simon, Chief Executive Officer of the Starship Foundation, described the importance of continued support: "Over the last year there has been an increase in children coming to Starship by 13%. With a huge demand on services, the work of the Starship Foundation has never been more urgent, more critical, or more relevant than right now and our children need your support more than ever. Every dollar donated helps improve the lives of seriously sick and injured children, so thank you from the bottom of our hearts for your ongoing support." The total funds donated, both past and future, are designated for hospital needs throughout New Zealand, addressing medical care for a wide range of health conditions affecting children, from minor injuries to severe illnesses. Last year, Starship Hospital recorded attendance from more than 150,000 children from across the country. Westcon-Comstor and Juniper Networks state that their joint initiative is intended both to provide resources for critical child healthcare and to serve as an example for others in the sector to engage in similar programmes.
Techday NZ
05-06-2025
- Business
- Techday NZ
Westcon-Comstor & Ericsson boost 5G growth in Australia & NZ
Westcon-Comstor has announced a collaboration with Ericsson Enterprise Wireless Solutions to support enterprise connectivity and partner growth in Australia and New Zealand. The agreement is intended to accelerate the uptake of Ericsson's 5G solutions in the region, leveraging Westcon-Comstor's network of technology resellers, systems integrators, and service providers. This development extends the partnership between Westcon-Comstor and Ericsson, which already has a presence in the Asia Pacific region and was recently expanded to Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. The partnership's central aim is to enhance the adoption of Ericsson's enterprise-focused wireless offerings. These include Ericsson NetCloud, Cradlepoint routers, and Enterprise 5G solutions, all designed to give organisations access to public 5G, private 5G, and satellite connectivity. These technologies offer security features through simplified SASE and are expected to enable a range of operational and business transformations for enterprise customers. Westcon-Comstor will be responsible for deploying a suite of value-added services as part of this initiative. The services include education programmes, data-driven insights, and training and enablement resources to help channel partners maximise the value of the Ericsson Enterprise Wireless Solutions portfolio. The increasing pace of 5G adoption in enterprise settings across Australia and New Zealand was highlighted by Ericsson. Julie Hens, SVP Global Distribution Partners, Enterprise Wireless Solutions at Ericsson, said, "Enterprise 5G connectivity in Australia and New Zealand is advancing at a fast pace because it is not only a viable alternative to wires but also a key catalyst to business transformation. Ericsson's existing successful partnership with Westcon in other countries is testament that this expanded partnership in ANZ, together with our shared solution providers, will support customers who are on their business transformation journey." Westcon-Comstor's leadership in Australia commented on the significance of the expansion into the Australian and New Zealand markets. Phil Cameron, Managing Director, Australia at Westcon-Comstor, said, "After achieving success in Asia, we're excited to expand our relationship with Ericsson into key markets, such as Australia and New Zealand." The benefits that Ericsson's solutions bring to Westcon-Comstor's partners were also noted in the announcement. Dave Rosenberg, Managing Director, New Zealand at Westcon-Comstor, said, "Ericsson is uniquely positioned to help our partners enter new markets with their world-class private 5G solutions – markets they may have never explored before." As part of ongoing engagement, Ericsson will present its latest technologies relevant to the Australia and New Zealand region at the 2025 Westcon-Comstor's Imagine: Resilient Futures event. Attendees at the event are invited to visit the Ericsson stand to gain further insights into the partnership and the opportunities offered by new 5G capabilities.
