Give us a brief overview of Canyon

Canyon is a fast-growing brand of high-quality and stylish, yet affordable mobile accessories, computer gadgets, wearables, and gaming tools. Being founded in 2003, it has grown to a full-scale consumer electronics brand launching a massive change in the gaming accessories category.

Canyon is sold in more than 26 countries across the globe and now we are coming to the Middle East. After a thorough analysis of today’s trends and in-depth research of the audience, Canyon design and marketing team has decided to open a completely new page in the brand’s 19-year history.

Discuss the needs of customers in the accessories and smart gadgets market

We constantly study the trends, needs, and behavior of our target audience. Nowadays, the young generation is fully into gadgets, and we are aiming to provide mobile, computer accessories, and wearables using which the youth can express their personality and style. Together with this, we offer the experience of using high-quality products at an affordable price.

Ilona Alieksieieva, ASBIS Middle East

Canyon people strive for everything new and unique, they always want to be amazed. At the same time, they are overwhelmed with trends of mindfulness, smart consumption, eco-activism, diversity, and body positivity.

How about the brand performance and global presence in 26 countries

Canyon is new to the Middle Eastern market, and we believe we will be able to meet customers’ needs and expectations. We started from UAE, some products you can already find in Virgin Megastore in Dubai Mall and online shop and soon you will see Canyon at all big retailers and e-commerce. From March we are also launching in Oman and will conquer other markets in GCC starting from Q2.

How did Canyon react to the requirement of gamers during the pandemic?

Of course, the pandemic period showed us how important is to set up a home office to be productive and comfortable working from home. Canyon has all items in the portfolio needed to do it: from super comfy gaming chairs to web cameras and headsets.

Gamers are one of the biggest target audiences for Canyon and you can find all features in our products that gamers value the most.

Just try Canyon gaming keyboards with full customization software, red or black switches, macros assignment, dual-core IC chip, NKRO anti-ghosting and anti-jamming function followed by 22 types of backlighting can leave nobody indifferent.

Tell us the role of Canyon in Eco Lifestyle

As a brand, Canyon strives to support the environment and we switched our packaging to fully eco-friendly materials. Canyon’s motto says YOU CAN! It shows that brand identity combines youthful carelessness with a smart way of thinking:

• You can be yourself without aiming to impress others
• You can join the tribe of mindful consumers
• You can throw away imposed body standards – your body is your business
• You can care about the environment and live an eco-friendly life

John, who joined from BeyondTrust, has spent the last 18 years helping to build a channel presence and coverage in the Middle East and APAC markets. He has worked for market-leading security vendors, including Juniper Networks, F5 and McAfee. He also spent three years as Marketing Director for Computerlinks Distribution, managing a portfolio of more than 25 security-focused vendors.

One of the first jobs of the new Channel Director will be to evaluate 250+ partners and focus on establishing a top 10 tier of VARs in each region. Centrify also plans to introduce an enhanced and improved virtual training platform for partners. This will include a one-week boot-camp style delivery into each region. There will be intensive training to bring partners up to speed on the company’s services capabilities and encourage better cross-selling and customer support.

“We have built up a strong channel network across EMEA over the past few years. Now is the time to assess these relationships to ensure our partners have the right skill set, product alignment and are committed to adding real value to our mutual customers,” comments John Andrews. “We also want to ensure we are working with channel partners that can offer specialist skills and routes into core vertical markets, including banking, retail and telcos.

“Our strength is the identity message, which plays into every part of the security sell, from privileged access management and single sign on to multi-factor authentication and identity as a service (IaaS). My primary goal is to support our channel partners in delivering this message to customers who are struggling to manage identity and access in today’s diverse environments, incorporating hybrid cloud, mobile and data centre.”

Centrify, who appointed Exertis as its distribution partner in the UK two years ago following the decision to move to a two-tier model, will visit distributors in each country to involve them in the process and present the new corporate strategy and vision. Other distributors include Infinigate in DACH and France, StarLink in the Middle East, and DCB in Benelux.