Everyone can get satisfaction
A few weeks ago, a systems integrator publicly berated resellers forting at Computacenter. forcing added value services on an unwilling customer base. It was right in saying that nobody should force a sale, but wrong to suggest companies should limit their offerings to suit a particular label attached to their business.
Computacenter is the world's largest reseller of distributed computer systems and services outside the US. We have built a successful business by focusing on the way our customers' needs are evolving. By being independent, we have an advantage over current and future technologies from the industry's major suppliers. This enables us to provide quality and depth of advice on corporate IT planning, which the traditional dealer model cannot match in either scope or experience.
We continually monitor our customer requirements via satisfaction surveys.
Growing numbers are telling us that while they still want boxes they need services to support them. As a result, our spectrum of services ranges from planning, requisition, integration and support to desktop management.
The growth of desktop technology has released a veritable genie from the bottle. Every member of staff wants the latest, biggest, fastest computer, and they want it now. Hardware and applications are funded by departmental budgets, but the technologies are supported centrally by IT departments, which rarely have the resources to meet demand.
Some resellers have spotted the opportunity for short-term gain and responded by promoting a range of services to their clients. It has given them a foothold in many accounts, sometimes with a view to a facilities management service and often with the long-term aim of controlling the customer's IT function. But that has never been Computacenter's way.
We believe not in taking over the IT function, but in supporting it through a range of focused technical services. The best people to run a company's IT are its own, so we invite our customers to out-task problems rather than outsource their operations.
We do not sell services to companies that don't want them, we make them available to customers who do. Services is one of the most successful areas of the business. It grew at a rate of about 50 per cent during the first half of this year.
Because we provide these services to a broad customer base, we can pass on economies of scale, cross-fertilise best practice, and provide better quality by using dedicated staff. Our customers in IT departments are using our services without having to redeploy their specialists.
Far from accepting the suggestion that we should back off from providing services, we see a future in which they become more valuable. Not because they are targeted at corporate and government customers, but because we can deliver greater value than they can obtain by providing the services themselves. Surely that is the prime responsibility of every supplier.