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01732 759725 36 Distribution Q&A portfolio perspective. There might be opportunities out there for companies that are in the same space as us, that have some of the same vendors and portfolio focus areas that we think would fit well with our culture that could be worth looking at. The last piece is targeted acquisitions, where we need a certain capability, maybe in a particular technology area or a part of the value chain, and focus on companies that have a capability that we don’t have enough of. TR: When you expand geographically is it just for financial reasons – to increase turnover – or are there advantages in having a global footprint? JT: There are huge advantages and I think Exclusive Networks does really well in striking the right balance between being a global company and having a local, decentralised empowerment structure and autonomy. From a vendor perspective, it is more critical to work with global players because they like to work with one company – one company’s credits, one company’s contracts, one company’s terms. It also gives vendors the opportunity to drive things more consistently, because a vendor has the same strategies and priorities wherever in the world it operates. So, there is a benefit for vendors in working with one distributor in multiple countries. At the same time, they often don’t do that because they fear giving up local closeness to the market. Exclusive really strikes the balance between having that local closeness to the market, with the people and the way we operate, and making sure we have some kind of a group strategy that allows a vendor to look at us as one company. We don’t want to sacrifice that because it is a key part of our differentiation in the marketplace. It is less of an advantage for partners downstream, I would say, because not a lot of them operate globally. You have a couple that are more international in nature – WWT, Insight, Computacenter, which is big in Europe and now starting to make inroads in the US with its recent acquisitions. But, in general, you don’t find one that covers the world, so a lot of the value in that is for the vendors. That said, it does give partners the opportunity to work with one distributor on things like global deployment projects for end users. TR: When you acquire a company, do you maintain its old branding or move it over to Exclusive’s? JT: It varies. In most cases we will move over to Exclusive because that’s what gives you the benefit of being part of the same company. If you trade under 20 different brand names, you spend the first 20 minutes of every meeting explaining that all the companies are actually part of the same group. I have been in that situation before and I have learnt that lesson. It is a difficult one – I understand why you asked the question. On the one hand, it is an emotional thing; you buy the company; there is a founder; there are people who spend a lot of time talking about why they are different. So, the brand name is important. But the acquirer is adding a lot of value to that business through its relationships, its strategies, its reputation, and if you don’t change the name, you lose some of that value creation for the acquired company. TR: At the launch of X-OD, you mentioned reaching for some aggressive milestones. What did you have in mind? JT: Well, I was saying that as a company, we reach aggressively for bigger and bigger milestones. I don’t have a milestone set out yet, but that will come. Just look at the Technology Reseller took advantage of the launch of Exclusive On Demand (see box) to catch up with Exclusive Networks CEO Jesper Trolle, who took over the reins from founder Olivier Breittmayer in September. Trolle was previously President of the Americas for ECS Arrow Electronics, a position he took up in 2017, having joined Arrow in 2005. We started out by asking Trolle where he thought there were opportunities to grow the business. Jesper Trolle (JT): Exclusive Networks is very well run and has good fundamentals, but I think we can accelerate both inorganic and organic growth opportunities. By inorganic I mean acquisitions – the company has been fairly acquisitive but there are still areas where we can go faster and there are markets where we are underpenetrated. For me, the organic opportunity lies in making sure we work with our key strategic vendors across our markets – that’s an area in which I think we can go faster – and in launching things that are a little outside our core. The business has grown up on cyber security and we are now focused on what we call ‘trusted digital infrastructure’, including some of the next generational infrastructure companies like Nutanix, Rubrik, Pure Storage. I think there is an opportunity to get closer to those types of vendor and grow with them. Technology Reseller (TR): So acquisitions will not just be to expand geographic coverage… JT: No. There are a couple of things when you look at acquisitions. There is obviously geographic coverage. By the way, I think Exclusive Networks already has that to a large extent – and when I say coverage I mean people on the ground, native- speaking, understanding the culture, the networks and all the unwritten rules. A lot of distributors say they have global coverage, but that doesn’t mean they have people on the ground. For me, that’s a key differentiator. Geographically, there are markets where we do not yet operate and where we would like to be. Then, you have markets where we feel we could be stronger and bigger, and where there might be a player that would be a good opportunity for us. You also have to look at it from a