CBL Data Recovery Technologies Inc. has inked a deal with NexInnovations in a bid to offer customers beefier services and additional safeguards in the data recovery market.
Under the deal, NexInnovations will market, resell and integrate CBL solutions and services across Canada, says Todd
Irie, NexInnovation’s brand marketing manager. Often times customers don’t look at data recovery proactively, he says, adding that the latest deal will help bring the market front and centre.
Given the fact that data storage is mushrooming in corporate Canada, companies need the reassurance that data is not subject to permanent loss, says Mike Briand, CBL’s business development manager.
Briand says the deal with NexInnovations, considered Canada’s largest independent technology service provider with 35 offices across the country, dramatically extends CBL’s reach. “It now gives us a lot more feet on the street . . . Our challenge here has always been to educate the public that we exist, and that our services exist, so getting the reach of a NexInnovations is great for us.”
The services deal with NexInnovations is the first of its kind for CBL, says Briand, indicating the company plans to bring more Canadian companies on board. “In terms of the national scope that a NexInnovations gives us, this is the first of that type.”
How will the partnership play out? CBL, which can recover data from tape backups, hard drives, optical media and removable media, will be transparent to the NexInnovation customer, Briand says.
“If their customers have a problem and want to recover their data from some distressed media, then NexInnovation technicians will essentially handle that for them and pass the media onto CBL – we’ll do the work in the background and then go back through NexInnovations.”
CBL is in the midst of educating the NexInnovations trainers and technicians about CBL services and how the company ticks.
“As the learning curve is taken off, they are integrating our service into their own intranet, which they use for their own company personnel. And we expect to see the business ramp up. But we probably won’t see the full benefit of the deal for about four to six months,” Briand says.
A deal like this is important, Briand added, because data recovery is starting to hit the radar screen of corporate Canada. “It certainly is an area that is starting to get more visibility in terms of business continuity and disaster recovery,” he says.
“There’s more concern now from companies about what happens when they have catastrophic failure. So we’re seeing an uptick in terms of our business, and we’re seeing that there’s more money being put into preventative measures – which I guess in some ways goes against out business.”
Considering up to 60 per cent of corporate data is on individual desktops and laptops that aren’t being backed up to the main servers or to tape, Briand says there’s still a vast audience out there that needs help.
