“It has become a part of our business that we absolutely require moving forwards.”
The Jag Group founder and CEO, Torien De Jager, says the Arrow APEX program has helped the company end-to-end, from providing the core benefits of certification and enablement through to bringing additional ‘fringe’ benefits into the organisation, such as in incentivising staff to higher performance and developing new business relationships.
The company specialises in providing ICT brokerage and financial services to clients. As a non-traditional reseller, De Jager said there was an initial concern the benefits of the APEX program wouldn’t align closely enough to what The Jag Group does.
“This is the first year we’ve taken the time and effort to sign up to Arrow APEX. Initially our scepticism was around how much time and effort we would need to put into the program and what we’d get out of it,” he said. “It has well exceeded our expectations and has given us the tools to better manage our vendor relationships and drive better client outcomes.”
For example, The JAG Group was able to leverage its involvement in the Arrow APEX program to assist a fund management organisation that was looking to accelerate business transformation. The fund manager had run up against a wall as a result of the loss of legacy HP infrastructure, and though it had its own HP managed services provider, it was struggling to fund and manage a transformation that would normally take years, in stages, in a hurry.
“Normally you would approach such a situation with a three-year strategy: year one might be a network upgrade, year two a datacentre upgrade, and the third year would be the desktop refresh, but this organisation found itself in a situation where it needed to do all the work at the same time, and just did not know how to go about it,” De Jager said.
“The managed services provider was an excellent partner but lacked the capability to provide HP Financial Services in a way that could finance transformation. Because we were part of the Arrow APEX program, when we became aware of this issue, we were able to partner with the managed services provider to fast-track the assistance of Arrow and HP Financial Services, within four weeks we had put together a whole of business transformation program.
“Thanks to the APEX program, the project was a success and the managed services provider is also now one of our partners. It has retained a new set of contracts with the fund manager, and we have funded the ability to do the complete refresh within a very, very short time.”
In addition to opening up new business opportunities, the Arrow APEX program has also been instrumental in assisting The Jag Group to become more productive and efficient internally. The gamification elements to the program drove “better behaviours in our organisation to have certifications upfront,” De Jager said, and also encouraged sales staff to be more proactive and efficient.
“Gone are the days where business success depends on bits, bytes, speeds, and feeds. Today, success hinges upon transforming to a digital business with IT economics that align to your business goals,” De Jager said. “With ArrowECS and HPEFS we can offer a customised consumption model and transformation funding to meet your IT investment strategy.
“Every year HP and Aruba have a new set of certifications,” he said. “Thanks to Arrow APEX, we are now incentivised to stay on top of that cycle as it rolls out from January to March each year, and that allows us to really hit the ground running.”
To find out more, visit the Arrow website here
