TCA day shows channel the way
The TCA has been working hard to offer its members tangible benefits and become a voice for the industry, and evidence of that work was on show at the TCA conference, writes Sara Yirrell.
Warburton: If the channel is happy, we are happy
Professionalism and collaboration were the key themes for delegates to take away from the TCA Conference last week, held on a grey and rainy day at the Walkers Stadium in Leicester.
The main theme of the day from the TCA’s point of view was to outline its growing raft of initiatives and offers for its members, and also to stress the need for a formal accreditation process for the channel. Delegates were also tempted by a Q&A session with entrepreneur David Atherton, who sold his dabs business to BT for a reported £30m in 2006.
The event boasted support from vendors such as Samsung, Symantec, Kingston Technology, Kaseya and Talk Internet, and also distributor DMSL and trade organisations Synaxon and CompTIA.
Kicking off the day, Samsung’s senior sales manager Charles Hacker demo’d the vendor’s latest external hard drives, explaining that Samsung aims to grab 10 per cent market share in the UK this year, and pocket 15 per cent of the overall revenue. Hacker was followed by Kaseya’s senior sales engineer Ray Barber, who used his presentation to extol the virtues of managed services – a market predicted to be worth £1.3bn this year.
Synaxon’s Rupesh Vara outlined the organisation’s plans for aggressive growth over the coming years, with a goal of 1,500 member partners in the UK by 2012. John Carter, managing director of DMSL and FixITLocalprovided a quick update on the two businesses, plugging DMSL’s latest hosted VoIP initiative and revealing FixITLocal was generating 130 leads per day – many of which were still not being taken up by resellers.
Before lunch, chairman TCA Keith Warburton took the wraps off the TCA Academy (see news section for full details) and his organisation’s aim to champion a formal set of accreditations for the industry.
Matthew Poyiadgi, director at CompTIA, rounded off the morning session with a futurology session, urging the channel to get more up to date with technologies such as Twitter, YouTube and blogs.
After lunch, Kingston Technology took to the stage to highlight its solid state storage devices (SSDs), claiming that by 2011, SSD will be the widest used NAND Flash format on the market, with resellers able to claim double digit margins on products.
Laurie Beagle, divisional director of credit management firm P &A Receivables, used his pitch to launch a P&A email helpline tailored especially for TCA members, with services including debt collection, fraud prevention, asset recovery, turnaround and recovery and personal debt.
Quoting figures from Bacs, Beagle said: “SMEs are owed around £18.6bn overall in the UK and the average debt is £30,000, with customers taking an average of 67 days to pay their bills. The recession is over, but those that have weathered the storm are more vulnerable after the event.”
The TCA then took to the stage to launch another new initiative in the form of a tailored indemnity insurance package for its members. Underwritten by Hiscox, the offer includes a tailored package for firms with turnover below £250,000 and firms with turnover above £250,000.
However the main highlight of the day was the David Atherton Q&A. For someone who walked away from the sale of his business with more than £20m in his pocket, he knew a thing or two about grooming a business for sale.
Despite not starting his session until 6.30pm, the audience drank in his answers to a range of questions including how to prepare a company for an exit strategy, what the best decision he had ever made was and his advice for companies looking to grow.
Keith Warburton, chairman of the TCA, said: “We are basically delighted with how the day went. We had a superb day, a lot of people were there – both exhibitors and delegates and they all seemed to be happy with the day. If they were happy, we are happy.”
For full write-up of the David Atherton Q&A, see ChannelWeb.
Dabs founder Atherton shares secrets of his successwww.channelweb.co.uk/2258581