The Alpha Group entered the Russian market 12 years ago with Argus Technologies. At that time, Argus won tenders with large fixed telephony operators including Makomnet, Metrocom and Comcor. Argus strategically built a distribution network, creating a solid presence in the Russian telecom market.
In April 2003, a decision was made to establish a permanent sales office in Russia to take advantage of opportunities in Russia and the surrounding Confederation of Independent States (CIS). AlphaTEK, the newest member of The Alpha Group, officially opened its doors in May 2004.
With its opening, AlphaTEK immediately began promoting DC products, building on the existing customer base, and upgrading legacy Argus systems. AlphaTEK signed agreements with two large DC systems integrators in Russia TEV and Abitel followed by additional agreements with other national distributors.
With these agreements in place, AlphaTEK began penetrating Russia’s largest wireless accounts, such as Megaphone and MTS. Sales with fixed telephony operators, such as Metrocom, soon followed. In addition to the telecom market, AlphaTEK began aggressively marketing to Russia’s vast oil and gas sector and is now achieving success with remote site powering applications.
AlphaTEK also began heavily promoting standby power solutions to Russia’s developing cable television industry. Within this market, the biggest challenge was educating cable operators of the importance in backing up power. To date, AlphaTEK has landed impressive sales to major Russian cable system operators, including Comcor-TV, MTU-inform and Pentakom in Moscow, Alma-TV in Kazakhstan, and Ala-TV in Kyrgyzstan.
The cable television industry in Russia and the CIS countries look strong in the future. One Russian cable operator is planning to invest US $24M into network infrastructure that passes over 900,000 homes by 2008.
In November 2004, AlphaTEK began promoting AC UPS systems. Despite strong local and international competition, they recently won their first contract for 2 three-phase AC UPS systems, with GazCom. AlphaTEK now has three AC distributors marketing small to medium sized AC UPS products throughout Russia and CIS.
Currently, AlphaTEK has a central office in Moscow with three outside sales people and two administrative staff focused on DC and AC business. A second office just opened in St. Petersburg staffed with two sales people who focus primarily on cable opportunities.
Based on current sales levels, AlphaTEK is predicting to achieve its initial sales goals two years ahead of schedule.
