LATAM Canalys Channel Partner of the Year Awards showcase new capabilities

On 8 November Canalys announced the winners of the Candefero Channel Partner of the Year Awards for LATAM in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Winners were honored by a record number of distributors attending, as well as other partners, sponsor vendors and the press. The awards recognize high achievement by the region’s channel partners in a range of areas and were held at the fourth Canalys Channels Forum LATAM, the largest independent channels event in the region.

Canalys Senior Director, Channels Alex Smith said, “Canalys introduced new categories in 2018 to distinguish partners innovating their business models and grasping new opportunities. The Channel Partner of Year Awards aims to reward partners moving out of their comfort zones to embrace new challenges and technologies as well as taking on new skills to grow their businesses.”

The Candefero Channel Partner of the Year Awards highlights outstanding performance in specific areas: Growth, Innovation and Transformation, Cloud, Impact and New Technology, together with an overall Channel Partner of the Year. Winners were selected from nominations received by a panel of experienced Canalys channels analysts. Their research considered how each partner had made sustainable investments for the future, its performance, its demonstrated expertise and the resulting business value generated for its customers.

Emtec Perú was announced the overall Candefero Channel Partner of the Year, recognizing the company’s excellence in terms of strategy, financial performance and transformation. Gerente General Oscar Martinez Valcarcel said, “We are delighted to win the overall Partner of the Year Award. We grew revenue by 50% in the last 12 months, and profit by a 150%. We are transitioning from being a traditional resale partner to having more revenues on a recurring basis and specializing in digital health projects.”

Growth Partner of the Year was awarded to Arkavia Networks. CFO Camilo Garrido Briones said, “Arkavia Networks has grown very well, we achieved more than 60% revenue and over 80% profit growth. We now have offices across the region and focus on network, security and software.”

Cloud Partner of the Year went to Argentina’s Febicom. CEO Daniel Felicitato said, “Febicom has built its own cloud to enable customers to self-provision their own solutions. This has given our customers a complete understanding of how much they will pay on a monthly basis and allows Febicom to support customers with a customized service, offering ERP, CRM, SaaS, IaaS and PaaS solutions on their transition to complete Hybrid IT (public and / or private cloud).”

AT Innovando Juntos of Uruguay was named Innovation and Transformation Partner of the Year. Marcelo Mazzilli, Director, said, “In 2017 AT started a process to create a new organizational structure to focus on digital transformation projects and to look at how LATAM businesses can take advantage of ‘as-a-service’ business models. AT recognized there are many different levels of customer maturity and that it needs a structure to support this.”

Winning in a new category, InnovuxIT took the award for New Technology Partner of the Year. Eduardo Sanchez, Sales Manager and Founder, said, “InnovuxIT was the first partner to offer and implement HPE Simplivity. This solution has now been rolled out to a further three customers. In addition, INNOVUXIT was the first partner to offer and implement the first HPE SAP HANA Appliance in Ecuador.”

The new Impact Partner of the Year award went to TeamIT from Colombia for its work to support children with HIV. Julian Zuniga, General Manager, said, “TeamIT has created a solution to repurpose technology equipment which is used in centers with 45 children who are HIV carriers.”

The Canalys Channels Forum in Rio de Janeiro featured packed keynote sessions, a record 21 distribution companies, more than 1,000 one-to-one meetings and a spectacular CCF Celebration party. The entire event was managed and translated using the Canalys Event App, which includes the new AI chatbot “Fero”. The app is available for vendors and channel partners to use at their own partner events.