Jabra execs say they commit to being 100 per cent for the channel

Following the shutdown of its commercial arm, Jabra has its eyes on enterprise.

After closing its commercial arm of the business in 2024, Jabra Australia executives said they are committed to the channel with its enterprise arm.

Speaking to CRN Australia, Peter Karlstromer, CEO at GN, Jabra’s parent company said they are “one hundred per cent channel led and strategically, we will stay that way.”

“We believe that this stability is important. Every channel or distributor, they are investing in in our business, and that certainty about how we think about channels,” he explained.

“They feel the investments are worthwhile to make because it would pay off over time. So that stability is very important, and that is something we do in Australia, and around the world.”

In June 2024, the company announced that it would be winding down its Elite and Talk product lines.

At the time of the announcement Karlstromer said this move was a part of the company’s commitment to “focus on attractive markets where we can deliver profitable growth and strong returns”.

From that move, Jabra now focuses on its enterprise customers.

“We believe that's where we have our strength, and where we believe we can be an innovation leader and continue to support the development of this market,” he explained.

In the enterprise market, Jabra sells video, audio, telecommunications and business solutions across the country.

Jabra has 27 partners across Australia that Karlstromer says they “actively engage with day to day”.

Partner pain points

David Piggott, VP and managing director at Jabra Australia noted that one of the biggest pain points for their partners is that they quite often have too many vendors.

“They're system integrators, and they don't necessarily get to understand the key selling points or the key reasons, so they become generalists,” he explained.

“The approach that we're having in Australia is that we teach them the stories, not necessarily the depth of the technology, but the stories.”

Piggott said they take these stories as a sound bite to customers to help them understand their business issues. For example, why a collaboration product needs professional devices in meeting rooms.

“One of the biggest issues that they have is around knowing the product to make it simple for them to do,” he said.

“Our go-to-market model is we have well educated distributors who support partners. We have a team across Australia and New Zealand that goes out and works with the partners and helps and then go on to work with their end customers.”

Piggott said the brand is competing for a percentage of the market that are regular uses of professional devices.

“We're probably one of the only vendors in the Australian and New Zealand market that are actively trying to grow the entire size of the market so that we can continue to take our rightful share.

“Our rightful share is obviously 100 per cent of it will be competitive environment,” he aded.

To obtain that 100 per cent share, Piggott said Jabra is using social media.

“What we're doing a lot with the channel and through the end customers, and through social media and through a marketing team is explaining to the market why a professional device is important,” Piggott ended.