En Pointe Executives Recognized as Channel's Most Influential People

Online, February 9, 2013 (Newswire.com) - En Pointe Technologies, a solution provider of IT products and services, today announced that several of its executives, including founder and CEO Bob Din, were recognized as the channel's most influential people in the second annual 2012 Channelnomics Channel Influencers Awards. The awards highlight those who inspire, stimulate, and impact the reseller and solution provider ecosystem.

Herb Hogue, VP, Professional Services & Data Center Practice, and Shahzad Munawwar, CIO and Senior Vice President Operations for IT, won in the Professional Services category. Both executives have guided the transition of En Pointe from a product business to a professional services group, already seeing impressive results from enhanced deal registration, higher margins, and tighter integration with the business.

Hogue has molded En Pointe's original professional services and consulting team into an established engineering power, split into two units: a pre-sales engineering team to support product sales; and a services/implementation team billable for on-site and customer facing work. His work as a change agent stands as a lesson for other partners on how to address the evolution of the channel space by moving into a more value-added capacity. Hogue's efforts to make En Pointe a more solution oriented systems integrator have helped the organization grow to nearly a 1:1 ratio of engineers to sales reps. The result has been enhanced margins for the product business and stronger relationships with customers.

Meanwhile, Munawwar recognized the coming change in the market moving toward cloud computing and communications and championed what has become a robust, cloud-based unified communications offering called the En Pointe Collaboration Solution (ECS). Munawwar grew ECS by driving the organization's relationship with Cisco Systems, and recruiting and working with distributor Westcon and other large telecommunications service providers. With the Westcon relationship secured, En Pointe has started marketing ECS to Westcon partners. The cloud service is currently on track to add 20,000 more seats to its capacity in the near term.

Founder and CEO is "One to Watch"

En Pointe's founder and CEO Bob Din was recognized as "One to Watch" in the Cloud category, alongside Jon Roskill, Corporate Vice President of the Worldwide Partner Group at Microsoft.

Din ushered En Pointe from a pure hardware reseller to a software reseller, later remodeling it into a full-fledged cloud services provider. Din has launched several cloud-based services from En Pointe including systems management, service desk, communications, desktops, and servers, many of which are fully online and already have multiple customers signed on from working with the channel.

Din has worked closely with manufacturers, distributors, and resellers to develop subscription-based programs - making a cloud subscription model viable on a pay as you go basis. He also works closely with manufactures to drive incentives at the field level in support of cloud sales.

Din's foresight and vision for the potential of the cloud culminated in a spinoff of En Pointe's cloud services group into dinCloud, who is racing from little-known start-up status to a key cloud player, having forged relationships with the likes of Ingram Micro, Microsoft, NetApp, and Trend Micro.

"This public recognition further validates the contributions and influences of our channel program leaders who have made a meaningful impact on the channel this past year," said Michael Rapp, president, En Pointe Technologies. "Bob, Herb, and Manuwwar always go above and beyond when it comes to the work they do on behalf of the channel, our partners, and En Pointe as a company. We appreciate their dedication, foresight, and vision as it benefits the channel at large."

The 2012 Channelnomics Channel Influencers Awards winners were selected from hundreds of nominations in twelve categories submitted by Channelnomics' readership, beginning in November, and voted on by a blue-ribbon panel of objective evaluators. The Channelnomics' editorial team served as the final arbiter.