Promotions and Spring are in the air!

Presidents Message by Garry Laxdal

Hello and welcome to our 1st Quarter Newsletter in 2010 for all of our valued members. There has never been a better time to be both an NEC Associate and as well as NECDA member. Our NEC product line up has literally “Hit a Home Run” to steal a favorite cliché as we move into the “new season”. The Univerge SV8000 lineup continues to get better and better for our associates and end users.

NECDA would like to especially welcome the following people who were recently elected onto our Dealer Council Board: Aren Magnussen, Jack Morrison and Steve Ferry. On behalf of NECDA, we look forward to working closely with you over the next three years of your 1^st term on the board.

Your Dealer Council Board had what we feel was the “Best Ever” meeting with NEC Executives: Frank Viola, Larry Levenberg, Ram Menghani, Gail Fisher, Don Stewart, Jay Krauser in Phoenix on January 28^th and 29^th. With a full agenda including our recent Promotion Survey results, New Promotional ideas, Software Assurance, Upcoming Master Quote changes and new product information, it was an extremely busy time. Part of the afternoon’s meeting, was via audio conference with Wade Irwin from Dallas as he spoke to us about some of the great changes NEC has made to the Software Assurance program. Collectively, both NEC and NECDA are in great favor of the benefits that the new Software Assurance program will give to our valued customers, while also assisting the Associates with increased recurring revenue that these programs bring. By aggressively pricing the Software Assurance and bundling it with a dealer provided Service Plan, everyone is a clear winner.

Thank you for supplying us with great data on the Promotion Survey we ran last month. Karma was certainly in the air as the results of the survey showed, there was great interest in expanding the current promotions for Trade-in, the hugely popular Nortel Displacement and promotional bundles that we have. The Karma aspect came to fruition as just after we presented the survey data, NEC shared with us, their ideas and collaboratively together, both of our groups were sharing ideas on how some new expanded promotions, which will assist you in selling a lot more NEC Univerge Solutions. Watch for these exciting announcements coming to you via the Web Portal over the next short while.

On February 3^rd, your NECDA Dealer Council held its annual Executive Elections. Elected for this next year are: Aren Magnussen as Secretary, Glenn Smeed as Treasurer, Charlie Nyman as Vice President and Garry Laxdal as President. Please feel free to contact any of the board members with any questions that you may have.

In continuing along with the ever popular Webinar Series, NECDA will be presenting two excellent Webinars over the next couple of months. On February 25^th, Charlie Nyman and Kevin Brennan will be presenting the remote teleworking via NEC’s CPU NAT. This promises to be extremely valuable for you as members, as our customers have been asking for this functionality for quite some time. On March 17^th (Yes St. Patrick’s Day) Garry O’Laxdal will be presenting on another “Best Practices” Webinar titled, Combining Software Assurance and Service Plans to increase your revenue with every sale. You’ll find out how other Associates are successfully increasing their maintenance base, while improving upon customer satisfaction. Please watch for the registrations that will be sent out to you via email over the next two months. We assure you that your firm will greatly benefit from these informational Webinars.

With Webinars in mind, your NECDA Council will pay you $500.00 if you’d like to present your own Webinar to our growing membership. Please contact any of the Dealer Council Members with your ideas and you could be $500 richer! Also, please keep your exciting articles coming in for our Crosstalk newsletter. NECSI will continue to reward you with $300.00 per published article of your success stories, as these greatly assist other members.

Mark your calendars for NEC’s Advantage 2010 being held in Dallas on April 8^th and 9^th. The lineup will be second to none and very exciting. The NEC Users Group will also be holding their annual conference in Seattle in May.

On behalf of your NECDA organization, we wish you the best in the next few months promoting and selling the Univerge 360 product line up. Our product line and value added promotions have never been stronger and as well, we stand out from all other competitors with our wide array of business improvement applications.

Sincerely

Garry Laxdal