Resellers would be doing themselves a big favour by working more closely with their market-making distribution partners, according to John Bird, Head of Systems and Support Services, Exertis VAD Solutions. Here, he puts forward a strong case for 'open book' relationships.
Even those comms resellers steeped most in tradition can succeed as modern day solution providers, believes Bird, but only if they ditch their transactional dealings with distributors and forge stronger links rather than persist with the antiquated status quo of a supplier-only arrangement. Encouraging this jump towards closer working partnerships is top of Bird's channel agenda, and Exertis' impressive credentials as a full blown service and support partner lend considerable weight to his argument. "If I could change anything in the industry it would be for the reseller channel to see distributors as colleagues or partners rather than suppliers," commented Bird.
Exertis is a wholly owned subsidiary of parent organisation DCC, Ireland's fourth largest company. In the UK it operates from six logistics centres but all this will change following the completion of a project to consolidate into a single purpose built National Distribution Centre. The new facility expands to over 650,000 square feet and accommodates 65,000 pallets, a 50 per cent increase on current capacity. Nor is that all: A company-wide project to update and improve the internal IT and CRM systems represents a total investment of approximately £60 million.
You would be a brave person to bet against the success of these developments. They build on years of experience and expansion - and getting things right has become a trademark that is reflected in the company's enviable growth history, a journey that began over 34 years ago. In its most recent financial results Exertis posted £2.35 billion revenues with operating profits of circa £50 million. Just ten years ago revenues stood at £500 million, but organic growth and acquisitions multiplied the numbers.
Today, Exertis employs almost 2,000 staff across 11 countries. Recent acquisitions include CapTech, the third largest distributor in Sweden, and Computers Unlimited, a connected home consumer electronics distributor based in the UK, France and Spain. Alongside these investments Exertis has been busy modifying internal structures to better meet the requirements of resellers. Much of this activity was prompted by the astute acquisition of Cohort Technology in October 2013.
Six months later Exertis introduced two B2B divisions called Volume (headed by Director Phil Brown) and VAD (led by Cohort Technology Managing Director Grahame Smee). The VAD structure is based on four areas - Network Security, Specialist Software, Unified Communications and Professional Services. Specialisation of the VAD business enables resellers to succeed and catalysed greater gains in key growth markets.
"Exertis VAD handholds resellers though the complex sales cycle," explained Bird. "The services include demonstration assistance, proof of concept, site surveys, installation and maintenance support, all underpinned by an in-house 24x7x365 technical support and network operations centre. We add real value by technically and commercially supporting our reseller channel."
In a separate but integral restructure Exertis aligned its hosted VoIP unit with the VAD Division, bringing on-premise and hosted UC solutions under one management team. The move is a response to hosted VoIP's similarity to on-premise voice - the only difference being an off or on-site server. "The expertise in our VAD team allows us to expand our hosted VoIP proposition with other cloud-based services, such as hosted PBX or hybrid-based solutions," added Bird. "Our ultimate goal is to provide an unbiased, consultative approach to all UC system enquiries. One size does not fit all: The best solution may be on-premise, cloud or a hybrid of both. Our pre-sales and proof of concept services team can recommend the most suitable solution."
More broadly, Bird has witnessed significant revenue growth across UC systems. He attributes this uptick, in part, to the acquisition of Cohort Technology that, at a stroke, added ShoreTel, Oak, ipcortex, snom and Gigaset Pro to the UC range. The core SMB portfolio has also seen significant year-on-year growth, with Samsung revenues up 20-plus per cent and NEC up 40-plus per cent. In recognition of this achievement Exertis collected the NEC Fastest Growing Distributor in EMEA award in June. As for the Devices division, new vendors have been on-boarded such as AudioCodes and Logitech, while long-term key vendors Plantronics, Yealink and Panasonic have all grown.
"Distribution is no longer a box shifting business," noted Bird. "It's essential for a distributor to offer a comprehensive portfolio of value added services that a reseller can tap into. We help resellers move into new markets and new technologies by leveraging our expertise. We also educate resellers to deliver these solutions themselves and increase order values by deploying desktop applications, CRM integration, call management, call recording and mobile integration. Applications such as these result in a clear RoI for the end user and help our resellers stand out from the competition."
Not for nothing did Exertis collect the Comms Dealer Sales Awards Distributor Channel Account Team of the Year accolade two years running in May. The reseller support offered by Exertis has also spurred uptake of desktop CTI applications and jolted a rise in mobile phone attachment rates. With BYOD, the VAD team manages mobile security and helps resellers to deliver BYOD solutions. "To succeed the infrastructure needs to be capable of supporting a BYOD strategy," added Bird. "The core essentials - networking, security, firewall protection etc - all have to be taken into account. Exertis covers these bases, and more, to make it easy for our channel to adopt and deploy BYOD."
Acquisitions of importance, inter-company structural modifications, fully rounded reseller support propositions and big investments in logistics all converge on Exertis' policy of putting resellers first in a fast evolving market. "Technology has advanced significantly over the last 10 years but many resellers have not adapted to this change," added Bird. "They should work more 'open book' with distribution and not be afraid to use a distributor to help them grow their business."