01732 759725 48 Q&A View from the channel Q: How’s business; better or worse than 12 months ago? And how confident are you about the future? A: Business is generally improved. Customers are exploring more appropriate and permanent solutions for their IT environments. By diversifying early into core adjacent technology solutions and putting in the hard yards for upskilling staff and enhancing capability, we are confident that we are in a good place to provide enhanced services to customers. This is not a simple or easy thing to do, so we are in a much better place than a few years ago. Q: In what areas are you experiencing strongest demand? A: We are seeing a pickup in managed print activity for fleet refreshes, but there is no doubt that our digital workspace operation (Lifecycle PC solutions), and cloud solutions / cyber security teams are seeing exponential demand. Q: How have you changed/are you changing business operations to exploit new opportunities? A: We embarked on a transition of our business starting four years ago. We recognised that the complementary contractual, sales and service delivery models for Lifecycle PC and IT hardware infrastructure solutions was attractive to us and would give our customers additional value through a single supplier operation. We also worked on developing our cloud solutions business at this time. Over the years we have carefully selected vendor offerings and integrated them into our value-added services to ensure they match our customerfacing value proposition. During this period, we have rebranded the organisation, built and launched a new web presence across multiple channels, and crystalised our customer value message to ensure they can easily see the difference and results they can achieve by working alongside us as their supplier partner. Q: What do you see as the biggest challenges facing channel businesses today? A: Managing the cultural and operational change to operate in a wider, more ITcentric world. We know many have tried to broaden their range of offerings, and many have not achieved the transition. We have also seen consolidation, and the acquisition of independent providers by manufacturers, which might then suggest a potential shift from a channel centric go-to-market to a more direct model where reduced operational costs and the need to show a return on the acquisition investment might drive conflicting behaviours. Q: Could vendors and distributors do more to help you overcome them? And if so, what? A: Absolutely, yes. Many talk about wanting to acquire ‘new logo’ customers, but struggle with creating an environment to achieve this. In MPS there is a contract minimum term where the full value of the partnership between provider, customer and manufacturer yields win / win / win. However, financial shortfalls inside manufacturers, and the pressures of IT David Smith, Group Marketing Director, Xeretec vendor job retention appear to drive short-term behaviours that focus on instant wins rather than a longer-term view. Vendors who recognise positive behaviours to deliver these market gains should perhaps focus their support with those who pro-actively look to deliver mutual growth. Additionally, many vendors have been ill equipped to provide reliable product supply forecasts, so creating constraint issues that are not in sync with customer demand cycles. The management of large price rises in contractual models creates customer interactions that need manpower, and whilst cost increases are natural, the knock-on impact and cost implications for the channel can be large. Q: If you could change one aspect of your job what would it be and why? A: Invariably trying to balance what one would call ‘value for money’ versus ‘the cheapest available’ – i.e., the cost of everything and the value of nothing, Procurement teams are often driven (and remunerated) by driving down costs, and always try to create a platform where everyone is considered ‘the same’ – i.e., commoditised. For a value-added provider who works to deliver enhanced services, high quality advice and often brings into the frame new ways to approach old issues, the concept of drilling out the value in what you bring is counterproductive to both the customer and the provider. Up to 83 per cent of the buying cycle is often undertaken by customers without support from a subject matter expert, which, in a fast moving, complex IT world, means that the customer team must become highly competent in so many market areas so quickly. If we were to move the needle to helping customers earlier in the process, then perhaps we wouldn’t see up to 50 per cent of IT projects deemed failures in the future. www.xeretec.co.uk David Smith
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