Partner-Centric Business Model: a Deep-Dive into BAKOTECH’s IT Distribution and Services

In today’s fast-paced tech world, businesses need more than just providers; they need partners. While the former’s primary goal is to sell a solution, the latter helps implement, customize, and ensure that solutions deliver immediate value.

BAKOTECH, an international IT distributor, goes beyond the basics. In addition to its core responsibilities, the company is a source of expertise for both partners and their customers.

Eugene Badakh, CEO at BAKOTECH, shared insights into the cocompany’spproach to working with partners and clients.

Eugene, what sets BAKOTECH apart from other distributors? And is it true that offering services is unusual for an IT distributor?

Our uniqueness lies in the fact that we don’t limit ourselves to just logistical distribution. We follow a True Value-Added model, offering a full suite of extra services: solution implementation, support, and staff training. Our “solutions + service + training” formula ensures complete customer satisfaction.

Thus, we free up our partners and their clients from routine tasks, providing a turnkey solution and guaranteeing the achievement of desired results. It’s a win-win-win situation for everyone involved.

It’s crucial to note that BAKOTECH never sells services directly to the end customer. We work with partners like system integrators and resellers and do not engage in any direct sales to end users.

Naturally, sophisticated cybersecurity and IT infrastructure solutions (like those BAKOTECH offers) need expert guidance. That’s why we provide top-notch technical support to our partners. Our range of services also plays a role: with their help, partners achieve a level-up and demonstrate better results.

Can you tell us more about the vendors BAKOTECH works with?

We focus on a select group of high-tech vendors, providing a more personalized approach. This approach differs from distributors working with large vendors like Cisco, Dell, Oracle or Microsoft. Our engineers are fully immersed in projects; each of them is unique and personalized.

We also provide certifications and training to help our partners become product experts. BAKOTECH engineers have high technological expertise in the market. Our Agile approach means we’re always evolving and adapting to meet our customers’ needs. This is our natural philosophy carried through the years.

In your opinion, why is such a model relevant today? Why are services becoming a necessity?

The market has changed. Today’s businesses want results fast, i.e., implement purchased solutions and start getting profit. As a distributor, we often introduce new technologies, ensuring our partners and customers have everything they need to succeed in products’ implementation and use.

How have you integrated services into your business? What types of services do you offer?

We are developing the service direction in all departments of the company. Our services include Value-Added Services (VAS), Managed Service Products (MSP), and training. Our goal is to empower our customers and partners to get the most out of their IT investments.

We currently offer services for some of our vendors, but we’re working on expanding that to all of them. Quality and expertise are our top priorities. That is why we decided to develop a new direction gradually.

Let’s talk about the services that accompany the purchase of a solution. It seems that in practice, you cannot avoid rivalry with a partner because usually it is the integrators who earn money on implementation or support services?

It might seem like we’re competing with our partners, but we’re not. We work with our partners, offering additional support when needed. It can be either a full implementation of the project if the partner does not have its engineers or partial performance of support work for partners. We don’t sell directly to customers, so there’s no conflict of interest.

Expert advice will never be superfluous, so we are glad to help our partners.

Do services allow customers to get results faster and with less effort? Or do they get a fundamentally new result?

The end customer who interacts with our partners is often from enterprise or medium-sized businesses

With our services, partners help large companies optimize IT resources, ensure cybersecurity, and increase the efficiency of IT solutions. Some solutions allow medium-sized businesses to get the most from IT investments without huge expenditures.

We sell complex, expensive, and multifunctional products. In some cases, incorrect configuration of the purchased solution did not bring the maximum possible benefit.

Therefore, no matter what service solution the customer chooses, they will, in any case, save time and resources. Moreover, they will get a product that is as efficient as possible, takes into account the specifics of the client’s work, and has passed a successful pilot launch.

We approach the development and sale of services from the point of view of results. Thus, we offer additional services not as a convenient feature but as a way to maximize your investment.

Imagine buying a $50,000 solution and only using a couple of the features. As a result, you do not fully utilize the solution’s potential. It means a waste of money and a negative impact on the business. Our task is to ensure that the company starts using the solutions shortly after purchase, rather than years later, and achieves satisfactory ROI.

We strive for customers and partners to understand the full benefits of expert services: it’s convenient, fast, turnkey, and so on. But first and foremost, it’s a way to maximize the return on the solution: as it is correctly started up, it is impossible to lose results due to errors and inexperience.

We asked Stanislav Kuleshov, Service Product Manager of the B4 department at BAKOTECH, to tell us more about the services offered by his department. The B4 department was the first in the company to start developing and implementing service services.

Stanislav, can you tell us more about the services from your perspective?

As Eugene already mentioned, our department offers the following types of services:

• VAS (Value-Added Services): Help customers interact with the purchased vendor solution as efficiently as possible.
• MSP (Managed Service Products): Autonomous services that do not require the customer to purchase equipment, configure it, and maintain a support team. It avoids capital expenditures and provides a ready-made turnkey solution with clear SLAs.
• Trainings: I consider training to be one of our key advantages. We are actively developing this direction, introducing new courses and nurturing our training staff from internal employees. This allows us to provide maximum practical skills for course participants when working with the solution. We transfer deep knowledge about products and solutions from vendors F5, Cloudflare, and Riverbed to our partners and customers. Our training is conducted in various formats, in groups and individually, adapting to the specific needs of companies. We are constantly expanding the range of training programs and are always ready to help master new technologies.

Can you give me some examples of the services you offer?

Sure. One of our key services is PSTS (Performance Security Testing Service). It is an expert service for auditing and testing the performance and security of systems. PSTS allows for multi-stage testing without affecting the operation of existing systems, obtaining an expert analysis with detailed recommendations, and subsequently conducting retesting to assess the effectiveness of implemented changes.

Another important service is WPS (Web Protection Service). It is a cloud-managed service for protecting web applications. It provides a high level of security with minimal costs. WPS includes protection against DDoS attacks, a web application firewall, bot detection, API protection, and much more. Note that the client only needs to change the DNS record to connect.

What are BAKOTECH’s plans for developing its services?

Eugene Badakh: We are actively expanding our portfolio of VAS, MSP, and training services across all departments. We plan to launch new courses at our training center, introduce additional MSP services, and deepen our cooperation with partners to develop their competencies. We aim to become reliable partners who help businesses achieve their goals faster and more efficiently.

Stanislav, how do you see the future of the services, and what are the main world trends you can highlight?

Stanislav Kuleshov: Services are the future of the IT industry. They allow companies to focus on their core business processes without worrying about supporting and managing IT infrastructure.

The main trends we observe worldwide include the transition to cloud solutions, the growing popularity of MSP services, and the increasing demand for cybersecurity. These trends confirm the importance and relevance of our services.

Conclusion

The conversation with Eugene and Stanislav showed that in the modern world, the role of an IT distributor goes far beyond simply supplying equipment. The market has changed, showing that providing comprehensive solutions that cover the entire product lifecycle is important – from its implementation to ongoing support and updates. This approach increases the efficiency of customers’ IT investments and contributes to the overall development of the market, setting new standards for service quality.