Sustaining profitability is one of the key issues that Middle East channel players continue to have today. Profitable partners are essential to the success of a vendor’s business.
But with declining margins and difficult market conditions, resellers are facing bottlenecks while navigating the path to profitability. Besides declining margins, regional channel partners continue to battle with a number of other challenges including tough market conditions, skills gap and access to finance or credit, that hinder their daily operations.
In order to help the partner community to device a roadmap to overcome these challenges and harness the opportunities within the evolving regional landscape, Reseller Middle East will host its first-ever Margin Builder Forum, which will be held on 8th May 2018 at Jumeirah Emirates Towers, Dubai.
The event will feature a panel discussion which will focus on ‘Combatting challenges in the channel.’
During the session, experts will deliberate on how partners can overcome pertinent issues such as evolving their businesses to the digital age, credit issues and effect on market, understanding implementation of VAT, counterfeit goods and other market challenges. It will also be an opportunity for partners in the audience to discover hands-on solutions to specific challenges that prevent their businesses to go to the next level.
The panel discussion will feature expert insights from industry veterans such as Hesham Tantawi, VP MENA, Asbis Middle East; Dharmendra Sawlani, president, Dubai Computer Group; Sohrab Saeed, VP group credit, ENBD; and Savitha Bhaskar, COO, Condo Protego.
Meet the panelists:
Hesham Tantawi, VP MENA, Asbis Middle East
Hesham Tantawi has over 25 years of extensive experience in the IT industry specialising in various areas of business such as P&L, general management, strategic planning, distribution channel management, supply chain management, maintaining close relationship with all the key vendors and the internal ASBIS sales and marketing team of specialists.
Dharmendra Sawlani, president, Dubai Computer Group
Dharmendra Sawlani is managing director and founder of Smile Computers and Savvy Impex (Dafza). Both the companies are into Distribution of IT and consumer Electronics range of products. Sawlani has been involved with Dubai’s IT sector for last 23 years and has experienced working for a trading company to a large distribution house and running his own business successfully for last 18 years.
Sawlani is also the President for Dubai Computer Group (DCG), which is a business group of IT companies in Dubai and is formed under the umbrella of Dubai Chamber. Dharmendra’s main role as a DCG president involves advocacy of industry issues with government and quasi government bodies like Dubai Chamber, Dubai Economy and Dubai Customs to name a few. He along with his colleagues at DCG is also responsible of driving business initiatives for the growth of ICT business in Dubai.
Sohrab Saeed, VP group credit, ENBD
Sohrab Saeed is the VP of group credit for Emirates NBD. He started his career with the World Bank in 1996 and subsequently moved to American Express, ANZ Grindlays, Standard Chartered and finally ENBD. Saeed has worked in Corporate Banking, Transaction Banking, Specialized Corporate Risk, SME Risk and finally Business Banking risk in three different countries.
Savitha Bhaskar, Condo Protego
Savitha Bhaskar is the Chief Operating Officer and co-founder of Condo Protego, assuming the role since the company’s inception in 2005. She also sits on the Board of Directors for the Condo Protego Group of Companies.
As part of her role at Condo Protego, Bhaskar manages all business operations, including the crucial sales and technical operations of the company.
Her strong, process-driven approach and a keen eye for detail have been instrumental in building the company’s technical delivery capabilities. This has led to Condo Protego’s establishment as the partner of choice for various EMC, Symantec and Veritas technology solutions in the region.
Farah Anwar, Co-Founder, Ashraf Electronics
Farah Anwar is the co-founder of Ashraf Electronics, a consumer electronics re-seller and distributor. She has experiences in finance and strategy professional at a prominent multinational, International Investment bank and Private equity house into the channel. Anwar is strongly focused on consumer technology and strategic business development for SMEs and would love to see more women in management roles in the IT/ electronics industry. She is the first elected Female member serving on the board of directors of Dubai Computer Group.
