Print.IT Reseller - issue 74

PRINTITRESELLER.UK 29 James Reed, Managing Director for Endpoint Solutions at Tech Data, explains how the distributor coped with COVID-19 and its plans to focus on ten core service offerings to help channel partners enhance efficiency, drive sales and achieve business objectives Tech Data announces trusted advisor strategy that a lot of the initial purchases were not fit for purpose, so I think that we can expect a second wave of purchases for the right product. Secondly, as lockdown restrictions begin to get lifted and people return to work, then I believe there’s going to be a very strong review of IT infrastructure. That will lead to investment in ensuring workforces are really, really efficient and able to work well from home. Businesses will be looking at accelerating investments in cloud infrastructure to allow that to happen and that’s partly why we predict that the as-a-service model is going to take off. Without committing capital expenditure up front, organisations will be able to improve their digital abilities and their own working capabilities. There is also the advantage of reduced spend on hardware onsite by moving infrastructure to the cloud. PITR: Your people are now all working from home, how has that worked and have there been challenges associated with logistics to overcome? JR: We had already invested heavily in our tools and infrastructure, which meant that prior to lockdown, we were able to migrate the whole of our organisation to working from home, and it has worked really well. The ‘challenge’ as you suggest, was on the logistics side, because as a distributor, we have to have people in our logistics centre, managing the flow of inventory and configuration. From a very early stage we put in place a number of measures including temperature checking everyone entering the logistics centre and we created two shifts, rather than one. Obviously, there’s been some challenges around deliveries too, although we have continued to achieve 99 per cent next-day delivery. So that’s been really good, and support from our suppliers around making sure that happens has been great. We’ve had some some small increases in failed deliveries, for example where the end customer is not onsite or the consumer is not in, but that’s an incredibly small proportion of the deliveries we make. The current climate is definitely not business as normal, this is an accelerated business, we’re very pleased that our entire workforce have been able to continue successfully servicing the market and that we have continued to meet our customers’ SLAs. PITR: How are you supporting partners in what is one of the most difficult trading environments they have faced? JR: Naturally we have to keep inventory coming into the warehouse. Obviously that’s been impacted in different technology areas, depending on where manufacturing takes place. The closure of plants in China saw a delay in output, but also presented an additional challenge of how does product get to us. The situation is improving now and a lot of product is being shipped by air. We’re doing everything we can to support our partners by holding inventory positions as well as we can. We’re also trying to help resellers, passing on additional cash offerings from vendors Tech Data’s customer base is comprised entirely of resellers across the entire gamut from traditional SMB, mid-market corporate and enterprise resellers, MSPs and SIs, consumer-based e-tailers such as Amazon through to telcos. From a technology perspective, Reed describes Tech Data’s offer as one which covers all routes to market by partner and by types of technology – from the datacentre to the living room. The portfolio is substantial, spanning consumer-based mobile smartphone technology, print supplies, to cloud-based software right through to cloud infrastructure such as Amazon Web Services. The company employs approximately 1,400 people in the UK and serves a customer base of around 7,500 resellers. PrintIT Reseller (PITR): When the UK went into lockdown, the industry saw a surge in demand for technology, printers, laptops etc. to enable people to work from home. Do you believe technology sales will now decline? James Reed (JR): We certainly saw an uptick around those areas of business, and I do see that continuing. I’m pretty optimistic that the next couple of quarters are going to be strong. If you look at working from home or educating from home, people will need to continue to upgrade mobility solutions, on the print side, all-in-one printers will be in demand, and peripherals such as headsets etc. will also be a strong investment area. In the main, feedback from some vendors and partners point to the fact ONE-TO-ONE Continued... James Reed Obviously, there’s been some challenges around deliveries too, although we have continued to achieve 99 per cent next-day delivery