Christo Conidaris VP UK Sales, Curvature

Curvature LLC, provider of third-party maintenance (TPM) and multi-vendor network and data centre IT lifecycle services, appointed seasoned IT sales professional, Christo Conidaris, to the position of VP sales, UK.

He joins Curvature from storage vendor, Quantum, where he ran Northern Europe & Africa end user and channel sales operations for four years. Formerly he was also at SunGard, Sepaton and ADIC
 
With a career that spans 31 years, he is a figure in the UK IT industry having helped many FTSE 500 companies achieve and exceed their IT objectives. He has accomplished largely through the creation, and hands-on management, of performant end user sales teams that also leads into increased channel engagements. His decision to join Curvature signals recognition of the increasingly significant role that TPM providers are now taking in the procurement process within data centres across the UK.

He notes: “Joining Curvature represents a fabulous opportunity. Coming from a hardware vendor, one issue that has started to resonate strongly is that end users are now actively seeking solutions to afford immediate savings from their existing IT budget. They are using these savings to drive and fund digital transformation. Gone are the days of manufacturer-fuelled rip and replace hardware cycles. Today, it’s about intelligently delivering ROI that offers increased productivity to the business. I’m therefore excited to join Curvature to substantiate how users can afford new technologies and greatly surpass their existing service levels with unbiased, vendor-agnostic services that cut costs, and fast.”
 
Indeed, to echo his decision to join world Curvature, it does feel like a pivotal time for TPM adoption. Last year marked the indication yet of an intelligent change in buying behaviours from IT procurement creating a dedicated category for TPM. In August, Gartner issued it’s first-ever, Market Guide for Data Centre and Network Third-Party Hardware Maintenance, where it estimated there are more than 10 million data centre/network devices that fall under TPM, with 71% of very-large enterprise customers actively leveraging a TPM for support of some devices in 2016.
 
TPM model actively encompasses channel partners too and channel engagement is an area that Conidaris will actively foster in his first months. 

Traditional hardware resellers in the UK face dwindling margins and partnering with Curvature into their own install base can help increase both profitability and service levels. With the ability to demonstrate ROI, resellers find customer loyalty and retention increases. Service levels stretch further with testing on hardware before dispatch, alongside reduced stocking times from up to 12 weeks to 24 hours, all delivered from the independent IT solutions provider.