Crayon Completes Rhipe Integration | Channel Asia

Crayon revealed the full integration of Rhipe into its brand after a two-year process.

Effective immediately, the Rhipe brand will be discontinued and both entities will now operate under the Crayon name.

The integration process involved combining teams and competencies, which allowed for the expansion of the scope of services, solutions and programs offered by Crayon.

“Our commitment to unlocking limitless opportunities for our partners and their customers is stronger than ever,” said Rhonda Robati, executive vice president of Asia Pacific (APAC) at Crayon.

In terms of desired integration outcomes, Robati described the process as a way to “achieve greater efficiency and value” for its partners.

“Our shared obsession with helping partners grow and our people-first culture have already delivered significant achievements in the channel business. We look forward to achieving even more as the frontiers of cloud and artificial intelligence (AI) continue to expand for partners in the Asia-Pacific region,” she added.

Under the new identity, Crayon will offer partners a portfolio of solutions in eight operational areas: cloud productivity, security, business continuity, business applications, IT cost management, cloud services, data and artificial intelligence.

These are in addition to services such as backup, cloud migration, enterprise resource planning (ERP) implementation, cybersecurity, cloud cost optimization and cloud management.

In the cybersecurity context, partners can take advantage of two new cybersecurity assessment offerings in Cloud Security, Azure Risk Mitigation and Essential Eight Maturity.

Crayon also intends to enable its partners to offer customers a more “comprehensive” set of private label products and services, helping them become a “one-stop shop” for their end customers.

In terms of Crayon’s renewed commitment to supporting partners, its revamped website features a dedicated section where partners can access resources and tools to support their growth and development.

In addition, Crayon will continue to provide partners with access to its Technology Advisory Group (TAG), a specialist entity based in the Asia-Pacific region that provides “strategic and technical” advice on a value-added basis.

The IT services company highlighted that TAG provides “expert support” in business development, supplier relations and technical consulting, equipping partners with “competitive differentiation and high-performance operating models”.

“By integrating our organizations, we invest in the success of our partners by making specific improvements,” Robati said. “Crayon is now better positioned to deliver further value to partners by ensuring consistent, sustainable and long-term business returns.”

In addition to the new services and partner support, Crayon also announced that Rhipe’s subscription management platform, PRISM, has also been rebranded to Crayon, coexisting with Cloud-iQ in the Asia-Pacific region.

This is part of the company’s plan to create a new cloud billing platform that will integrate Cloud-iQ and an enhanced PRISM program.

“Our goal is to provide our partners with the best tools and support,” said Warren Nolan, Senior Vice President of Channel at Crayon.

“By creating a new, integrated cloud billing platform, partners will be able to streamline subscription management, gain real-time visibility into their spending and access comprehensive reporting tools.”

Nolan believes the new platform will simplify operations and help optimize cloud investments, so partners can focus more on growing their business and less on administrative tasks.

Meanwhile, Crayon revealed that new affiliate programs will be launched for the APAC channel community to “add strategic long-term value” to partners.

These programs are expected to be launched in the second half of this year.

With the new structure, Crayon’s global presence now includes over 4,000 employees, of which over 800 are located in the APAC region and support over 3,500 regional partners.