Fuelling success through meaningful change and problem-solving with this 15-year partnership

For just over two decades, Emerging IT has helped businesses Australia-wide “do more with less”, specialising in managed services that simplify and secure enterprise networks and infrastructure. The firm prides itself on second-to-none customer service and a reputation for trustworthy partnership, backed by longstanding industry expertise across multiple verticals – and decades-long distributor relationships that have evolved with the firm’s business model.

Challenges:

• Delays on critical network installations due to supply chain blockages
• Difficulty navigating large vendors’ complex organisations to get the right level of support
• New solutions often require technology and design expertise that takes time to scale

Solutions:

• 15 years of responsive and collaborative service from Dicker Data
• Robust inventory and flexible sourcing support
• Co-designing and technical expertise for Aruba wireless solutions

Benefits:

• Trusted relationships with vendors like Aruba, including input into solutions design
• Faster resolution of supply chain and technical issues for customers
• Strong foundations to develop new practice areas like in-building networks

Challenges: Scaling solutions – and relationships – amidst ongoing disruption

Emerging IT’s services have continuously evolved to address customer needs over the past 20 years – but doing so has become increasingly complicated due to persistent supply chain disruptions. Holdups in delivery have proven even more challenging as Emerging IT pushes deeper into business-critical infrastructure requiring rapid deployment and minimal downtime, such as workspace networking solutions.

“We’re increasingly dealing with mobile workforce solutions that offer wireless connectivity throughout entire offices to keep customers’ employees online and productive,” says Andrew Corrigan, Business Development Manager at Emerging IT. “But while we’ve been able to sell these solutions, which is brilliant, getting hold of the hardware to deliver the solution on time during supply chain shortages has been quite challenging.”

Building up broader technical expertise in new solutions areas also requires strong relationships with key vendors – many of which can be difficult to connect with due to their size and complexity.

“The stakes are higher when you’re working on building-wide networks and everyone’s productivity depends on getting the network right,” says Noel Ervine, Sales & New Technology Director at Emerging IT. “Designing and deploying the solutions correctly often requires us to lean on the vendor for support – but getting access to the right people is always quite hard in vendor-land.”

“The first step of the journey is building trust with those vendors – making them aware that Emerging already has the breadth of skills to go all the way,” says Aubrey de Souza, Head of Sales Operations at Emerging IT. “Because we’re an SME, it requires extra effort to convince them that we have the capabilities to deliver world-class solutions to customers using their technology.”

Solution: Fresh on-tap technical and logistics support from a 15-year partnership

For Emerging IT’s team, Dicker Data plays a significant role in bridging the gaps. The 15-year partnership has entered a new stage recently with Emerging IT’s adoption of Aruba as its preferred vendor for Integrated Communications Networks (ICN) and other advanced wireless solutions. “The Dicker Data pre-sales team greatly assisted us in building this relationship,” Corrigan says. “Their introduction (to Aruba) really went a long way to instilling our faith in Aruba’s product as the centrepiece of our push into ICN.”

Dicker Data’s team actively connects Emerging IT’s solutions design team to product experts at Aruba, as well as injecting in-house support wherever required. That’s proven especially important in forecasting supply and demand – a tactic that has helped Emerging IT minimise the supply chain risks across many of its new projects.

“We’ve able to work with Aruba on forecasting when we’re actually going to receive hardware, which then helps us roadmap and set expectations for our clients well ahead of time,” Corrigan explains. “Dicker Data’s done a great job of giving us that visibility into when hardware might arrive and the delays we might face, which allows us to make sure customers don’t get disappointed or disrupted down the track. Providing that clarity has become a key part of how we achieve our mission – fuelling success with meaningful change and problem solving – on a daily basis.”

Dicker Data’s inventory has helped Emerging IT deal with present supply chain issues too. “Having hardware that’s years away from delivery is obviously not ideal for a lot of our clients,” says Sam Holden, a Technical Specialist Manager at Emerging IT. “But Dicker Data’s team will typically step in and loan us hardware off their shelves, which enables us to continue creating value for customers in inventive ways. Aruba’s products stand out because of their ease of use and advanced capabilities, and Dicker Data’s support system makes sure we can leverage that even when we hit unavoidable shipping delays.”

Dicker Data’s longstanding history with Aruba also put it in a strong position to not only pursue business with Emerging IT, but co-design solutions that allow the services provider to punch above its weight.

“Dicker Data’s team partners with us all the way in getting the solution right,” Corrigan says. “Sometimes, working out the design can be a little tricky – especially if I’m the middleman and I haven’t necessarily seen the site myself. Having the guys at Dicker Data directly working with our clients, helping us with things like heatmapping, really allows us to build solutions that fully map to and sometimes even exceed our customers’ business requirements.”

“With Darko (Dicker Data’s Solutions Architect for Aruba) and his team, they’ve always been there as an extra pair of hands and eyes to help us when we’re under the pump,” Ervine says. “Dealing with these guys has been a key part of us improving our Aruba business. We’ve relied on them various times to help us design our way to maximise customer value, and we’ve seen them make things happen that nobody else could pull off.”

Benefits: Stronger vendor partnerships and a path to scale

The latest stage in the partnership has seen Emerging IT build trusted relationships with Aruba that include input into future solutions. “We find it’s a good two-way street,” Corrigan says. “We’re getting great solutions from them, and they’re attentive to our inputs into what we’d like to see in the market.”

“Being able to talk to vendors of this scale has been hard in the past, but by going through Dicker Data we’ve gotten access to the people in Aruba who can help us help our customers,” Ervine adds. That includes further developing Emerging IT’s integrated communications network business, which Ervine calls a “key focus” that will be built on the Aruba stack to give customers greater simplicity, performance, and seamless integration in workforce connectivity.

As Emerging IT continues to evolve, its team know exactly what they most value in their distributors. “Dicker Data has this extremely responsive team,” says de Souza. “If we need to reach deeper for technical expertise, we know they’re there and available to support us, both from a pricing and technical perspective, in doing what’s best for our customers.”

“They’re really responsive from Inside Sales all the way to Solutions Design,” says Corrigan. “If we need an answer quickly, we just send out the call and they’ll quickly come to help. That’s far above what we’ve experienced with other major distributors. The engagement has been fantastic.”