With its roots set deep into the world of traditional information technology distribution, Corex has evolved to focus on five strategic areas:

• building on its historical foundation as a distributor of global brand name components, including those in the do‑it‑yourself (DIY) PC and PC gaming sectors
• providing value-added services, support and products to the dynamic small to medium business (SMB) sector
• the burgeoning point of sale (POS) market
• Digital Signage
• Digital video surveillance

Since it was established in 2003, Corex has attached great value to building up solid relationships within the South African channel, underscored by firm commitments based on forming true partnerships with resellers and dealers to create a stable, sustainable and loyal base that grows with – and supports – Corex.

Corex applies the same approach in its partnerships with the brands it represents and distributes in South Africa – all leading, world-class companies that add value to the products they market.

In cultivating these valuable relationships both locally and globally, Corex prides itself on its aggressive approach to distribution. Underscoring this is its refusal to take the traditional approach of focusing only on volumes and so-called “box moving”; besides not creating a win-win scenario for all involved, this leads to both a lack of vision as well as a lack of focus in the distribution arena.

It also results in the dilution of the channel, a lack of brand differentiation and no unique value propositions from most local distributors.

Against this challenging backdrop, which will also result in greater consolidation amongst vendors and distributors in coming months and years, Corex is better – and different.

Understanding that its success lies with the full, long-term support of the South African channel, Corex is focused, energetic, agile and dynamic. It is prepared to move rapidly with even the most demanding times and ensure all its partners prosper, even as Corex prospers.

The bottom line? Corex remains committed to its exclusive channel-focused vision; one where it works with its partners in bringing value-added solutions to South African companies, consumers and other customers.

Corex: Different. Better.

Corex extends its market reach to include both the business-to-consumer (B2C) and the business-to-business-to-consumer (B2B2C) markets, and beyond that, to exciting new market segments.

Business-to-consumer

Despite a decline in other areas of the personal computing arena, such as notebooks and netbooks, desktop PCs continue to have a surprisingly strong showing.

Instead of being negatively impacted by the incredible boom in the tablet market – exemplified by the iPad – desktop PCs are in greater demand than ever before. With mobile devices becoming computers in their own right, providing an astounding amount of processing ability and bandwidth, end‑users are increasingly opting for a two-system scenario: a mobile unit such as an iPad or smartphone on the road, backed up by a desktop PC at the office or in the home study.

Besides the growth potential on that front, continued expansion in the PC desktop sector can also be attributed to two market segments that Corex has long been a strong player in – PC gaming and the DIY PC.

With console gaming reaching the end of its life-cycle for more demanding users, today’s new generation of PC gamers are hungry for the best and are providing the PC hardware industry with a much-needed boost.

Besides buying high-resolution displays and quality accessories such as surround-sound speaker systems, headsets, mice, and keyboards, PC gamers and DIY enthusiasts continue to spend vast sums of money on cases, cooling, and other components.

In the South African channel, the keys to success here are concentrating on

• the latest-and-greatest,
• time to market, and
• offering the freedom of choice.

Over the past decade, the Corex B2C Division has become renowned for its local focus on the high‑end segment of PC business, by distributing global brand-name DIY kit, as well as other PC components and personal storage products, backed up strong after-sales service and support.

In the highly-competitive B2C arena, Corex represents market leaders such as Thermaltake, Thermaltake eSports, Corsair, AMD, Western Digital, Transcend, MSI, OPTI-UPS, Aver Media, LG, Samsung and Sony.

Business to business to consumer

Despite being key to the economy of South Africa as an emerging market, small-to-medium businesses (SMBs) are completely underserved and receive neither the quality IT products nor the pre- and post-sales attention they deserve.

The Corex B2B2C Division works closely with the channel to addresses this gap in SMB service delivery and IT support, providing value-added enterprise-quality solutions that control the total cost of ownership (TCO), maximize productivity and minimize business risk -- while allowing SMBs to grow and remain competitive under even the most challenging of market conditions.

Having moved on from requiring only basic functionality such as desktop e-mail, security products and office productivity tools in days gone by, today’s forward-looking SMB now has recourse to cost‑effective, high‑quality products, services and solutions previously only required by large corporations.

Driven both by falling broadband costs – as well as the continued expansion of broadband in South Africa – these could include:

• cloud computing and software-as-a-service (SaaS),
• off-site backup, disaster recovery and business continuity,
• customer relationship management (CRM),
• enterprise resource planning (ERP), and even
• online collaboration and knowledge management.

Working with the South African channel, the Corex B2B2C department focuses on distributing leading-brand networking, server and storage hardware products, as well as providing the full spectrum of consulting, installation, maintenance and support services.

Corex is partnering with ZyXEL – a global leader in networking equipment manufacture to enable resellers to capitalize on this new venture.

Digital signage

Corex has also expanded to concentrate on Digital Signage, recognised by key players such as Sony, Samsung and LG as a lucrative and largely immature, untapped market that hasn’t been fully exploited by the local channel.

One-to-one communication is becoming more pervasive, and digital signage leads the charge. At its most basic, Digital Signage involves the use of today’s latest generation technology to disseminate messages previously broadcast through traditional media such as TV, posters, and other similar media.

In the retail industry, Digital Signage could incorporate a network of displays that are remotely managed and provide pertinent and timeous merchandising and advertising information.

But besides traditional venues such as grocery stores and restaurants, Digital Signage continues to expand to such locations as health clubs, schools and universities.

The Corex Digital Signage portfolio includes products such as kiosks and video walls, as well as value‑added services, including retail management, content creation, installation, system configuration, network design and deployment.

Distribution partners include AOpen, LG, Sony and Samsung.

Point-of-sale

Corex has also embarked on an ambitious programme as a point-of-sale (POS) distributor, and provides a comprehensive portfolio of solutions, consulting services, outsourcing and network security for the hospitality, retail, as well as the food and beverage (F&B) industries.

Once limited to only the largest retail stores, POS has become more cost-effective than ever before, enabling smaller businesses to benefit from increased customer satisfaction, improved inventory management, and reduced shrinkage. POS systems do not only cater for cashiers; self-serve retail POS systems using touch screens, scanners, and payment acceptance mechanisms will also see a dramatic uptake in coming years.

Corex is the South African distribution partner for global names such as Cuscapi and Partner Tech.

Digital surveillance

Digital security surveillance is a new market replete with possibilities, particularly in South Africa. Besides wireless technology, which looks set to be a major growth area in the CCTV and video surveillance industry over coming years, another potential growth sector is video surveillance as a Service (VSaaS), also known as cloud-based video surveillance.

This market will be driven by the requirement for remote redundancy of video data, plug ’n play installation, remote access to video, and lower costs.

In coming years, there will also be an increase in bleeding-edge but cost-effective video surveillance technologies such as thermal security cameras and high-definition (HD) video.

Although HD may be the buzzword in the consumer electronics arena, research indicates standard definition network cameras are still outselling their higher resolution counterparts at a factor of four to one. And, while analysts believe that HD and megapixel cameras will represent only 30 percent of network security camera shipped this year, more than 60 percent of network security cameras will be HD by 2015.

For Corex, target segments include point of sale (POS), video analytics, home automation and access control, and partners include market leaders such as LG, Samsung and Sony.