Spotlight by Mr Philip Griffiths
1-7-2019
Today Phil at Techs for Techs spoke to Jamie Plumridge, Commercial Director at Tenda UK about their products and what makes them stand out and why their products should form part of your range.
Tell us about Tenda history and how it started...
Tenda was started by our current CEO, ‘Mr Boat’, back in 1999 in China. Tenda was the first privately funded home / SMB networking manufacturer in China and is still 100% privately owned by the same CEO.
Right from the start Tenda’s passion has been to provide excellent quality products at great value for our customers, whilst ensuring that our partners can make good margins. Our CEO has been a huge advocate of the independent channel right from the company’s inception, even spending 6 months on the road personally visiting 100’s of independent resellers throughout China in order to really understand what our customers want and need from a networking partner. This guidance is infused in Tenda’s global strategy to this day.
Up until 2017 Tenda was primarily focused on becoming the number 1 home/SMB networking brand for the China and Asia markets. After successfully achieving this, we have now made significant investments in repeating that success throughout the world, including the UK market. Tenda now distributes to over 100 countries worldwide, with many of these countries opening up its own dedicated office, has over 3000 employees, manufactures over 120,000 units per day, and has a turnover in excess of $1 billion per year.
In the UK, Tenda opened up our UK office in London during November 2017. From an initial 2 UK employees, Tenda UK now has a team of 15 staff dedicated to servicing the UK market. This has seen us become the fastest growing UK networking vendor very rapidly. Our focus is true to the overall strategy developed 20 years ago……. Great products, Excellent value, Attractive margins for our partners.
What products and services do you offer?
We have a range of over 90 home and business networking products in our portfolio. From our award winning NOVA mesh WiFi systems, to wireless adapters, powerlines, switches, routers, access points and controllers. If you have a need to ‘connect’, then Tenda have the right solution.
Tell us About the Tenda Team and how they are willing to help independent stores.
Our team has been built very rapidly over the last 18 months in the UK. A majority of the team have extensive experience and background within the UK networking market either via working for other Vendors previously, or gained from working within the UK’s most recognised Distributors. We are a dynamic, driven, approachable, and multi-cultural bunch, each bringing our own unique experience and personality to our roles. At Tenda we all pull together to passionately grow our UK brand, and to support our channel !. Every one of us is proud of what we have already achieved in the last 18 months, and even more excited about what is yet to come.
We go above and beyond what is usually associated with the Vendors ‘service’ to Resellers. Every week we visit Resellers directly, speak to them on the phone, and engage with our Reseller community on the TechForTechs forum. The Tenda UK team is always accessible and happy to help in any way we can.
We constantly develop ‘Independent only’ special offers. We have even made over 75% of our product portfolio exclusive to our channel partners meaning our independent Resellers do not have to compete with the major online stores directly on those products.
Lastly, we have developed our Reseller Partner program to provide exclusive support, special offers, and product offerings to our partner members. Our program can be found at https://www.tenda-partners.co.uk/partner-program
Why would you say there has been an increased popularity in gaming products?
The gaming market has exploded over the last 5 years and it has resulted in huge changes in who, how, and where customers access games. Not very long ago gaming was primarily enjoyed by a narrow demographic of customers (traditionally 14-35 year old males), and they accessed their games on either a games console or a PC. Fast forward just a few years and everything has changed. Gaming is now enjoyed by a greater diversity of males and females, and from a much wider age demographic. Games are accessed on the traditional games consoles and PC’s, but also through the fastest growing area of the gaming market; Mobile gaming. Customers game on their phones, laptops and tablets, often as well as the traditional consoles and PC’s.
For Tenda and our reseller partners this provides an opportunity as the customer wants perfect Wi-Fi everywhere in the home, and at better speeds. It is simply not acceptable anymore to the customers to have ‘wifi black spots’ anywhere in the home. This is where our portfolio of NOVA Mesh Wi-fi products is perfect for the customer. Simply plug in the 3 boxes and enjoy perfect Wi-Fi. Everywhere!
Our NOVA’s also come with the added benefit of Parental Controls built in to the app. So if parents wish to limit their children’s internet use to certain times of the day, they can set the wi-fi access to be turned off for certain devices every day at a set time.
What makes your products different?
Put simply our products perform excellently (please don’t take our word for it – see the reviews) whilst being at really great value for the end user, AND providing attractive margins for our Resellers.
When it comes to networking we believe the end user just wants a good solution to their problem at a reasonable price. We believe that Resellers just want to provide a good solution to their customers problem whilst making profit.
Tenda provide products that make the end user happy, and make the Reseller profitable. Everyone wins.
What are your future plans?
Global domination !
Aside from that, in the near future you will see some further additions to our award winning NOVA mesh range, a new business class mesh solution, and a further expansion of our business range of Switches and Access Points.
What distributors are your goods available at?
You can buy the Tenda range from the wonderful people at VIP Distribution, Target Components, CI Distribution and Ingram Micro.
If someone wanted Point of sales materials, who would they contact
Steve Moule (steve.moule@tenda.cn ) or Sam Scott (sam.scott@tenda.cn ) would be delighted to organise that for you.
If someone is having an issue, and the distributor could not help how would they contact you?
Steve Moule (steve.moule@tenda.cn ) or Sam Scott (sam.scott@tenda.cn ) would be delighted to organise that for you.