ECT appoints new head of indirect sales

With the appointment of André von Appen as Vice President Indirect Sales, European Computer Telecoms Group (ECT) is widening the foundations for its strategic development. Through its direct sales channels in Europe alone, ECT has achieved outstanding growth and high profitability in the past three years. By creating a division for indirect sales, ECT is now accelerating its entry into the global market. As a member of ECT's new Management Board, André von Appen will work closely with world-leading infrastructure partners to manage the indirect selling of ECT solutions to fixed-line and mobile network operators. Besides setting up ECT's Indirect Sales division, André von Appen will be putting together an international team of specialists. The team will encompass a full range of job functions – including sales, pre-sales, project management, implementation and post-sales – needed to ensure that infrastructure partners and their customers receive first-rate support across the entire value chain. In the future, dedicated ECT experts will be on hand to assist partners with the preparation of tenders and to accompany partners to important meetings with their customers. In addition, ECT succeeded recently in closing a strategic partnership deal with a major global infrastructure vendor. In just over 12 years, André von Appen has had a remarkable career. After receiving an engineering degree in telecommunications with distinction from Dortmund's University of Applied Sciences, he embarked on his career track by working for ABB's data networks division in project management, consulting and sales. He then joined Siemens Nixdorf as a key account manager in LAN/WAN networks and applications. André went on to work as a channel account manager at 3COM in the strategic development of international infrastructure partners, which included players like Siemens and IBM. Under his supervision, these companies generated some of the highest sales among 3COM partners. Subsequently, he moved to Marconi Channel Markets, initially as Channel Sales Manager Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), a post in which he drove forward and shaped the Europe-wide development of a partner base for data networks, access and optical solutions. His successes continued in 2002 when he took over management of the company's operations as Director Sales CEE. It was at this time that he switched the sales model over to vertical solutions, a move that scored unique successes in the area of mobile operators, carriers and enterprise solutions. The geographical focus of ECT's indirect sales activities will rest on the high-growth regions Central and South America, India and Eastern Europe. ECT will market all of its solutions in these regions, but the primary emphasis will be on highly profitable ring back tone solutions and prepaid services. Once the new Indirect Sales division has started up successfully, ECT plans to allow it to operate as an independent company. Says von Appen, commenting on his new appointment: “Given ECT's considerable successes in Europe, there is enormous potential in terms of business opportunities for our high-quality value-added services in fixed-line and mobile communication markets outside Europe. ECT's important strategic step into the global arena will allow me to draw on my many years of experience in partner business to explore and tap into this potential to create value for our partners and customers.”