The consumerisation of IT may be a headache for CIOs, but it’s great for Targus as it attempts to increase its B2B market share in the Middle East. The company, which is a leading provider of bags, cases and accessories for laptops and tablets, sees much of its business in the region coming from the consumer market, but it is increasingly setting its sights on the enterprise.
“In an ideal Targus world out market reach would split 50/50 – 50% B2B and 50% B2C. However, in the Middle East the majority of our business has been in the B2C market. This it has been a big focus for us this year and going forward to increase our B2B market share. A main focus for us is resellers and the channel market and we have just hired someone to specifically build up the B2B and channel business,” said Riyaz Abdulla, Regional Sales Director, ME and East Africa, Targus.
As more organisations in the region both turn to tablets as a new method of personal computing or allow staff to bring in their own tablets to work on, Targus sees much opportunity in the business space.
“The market has been growing for us. One of the biggest successes for us has been the tablet category. The category itself is a big growth market so giving that fact our good quality and high end products increase the value of the product they are accessorising, that’s giving a tremendous boost in terms of growth for us,” Abdulla said.
“With the consumerisation of IT we see more organisations turn to our tablet accessories as the Middle East continues to respond very well to that trend. We’ve seen some of the biggest universities in the region implementing iPad as one of their key tools, so I think the wave is come. In Europe we are actively involved in a lot of B2B organisations to promote the whole iPad and accessories that go along with that, so we expect that to happen here also. We expect the trend to continue,” he added.
To suit this trend, most of Targus’ carry cases now come with an additional slot for a tablet.
“We’re no longer making our bags just to fill a laptop, but both a laptop and a tablet. That comes from many studies showing that many people are carrying both nowadays. We spend a lot of time and effort in doing segmentation studies and developing our products based on the results,” Abdulla said.
Targus has been operating in the region for almost 10 years. At this year’s GITEX, the company exhibited with various partners, including Redington and Despec. “We are trying to spread our base and support our partners. We want to let the customer know that Targus is well represented in the Middle East, as is its distribution network, and we are catering to all the consumer needs – be it B2B or B2C – in all categories of laptop production and accessories, security and tablet accessories. Our presence at GITEX was to reassure the channel and the market that we are present here and re-emphasise that presence in the region,” Abdulla said.
