DEALER PROFILE - Playing for extra time
John McCartney, managing director of Rapid Group, on acquisitions, continuity of product and poaching customers.
Company founded - 1987
Company history - Originally Rapid Accounting Services, an accountancy practice established in 1982. The computer dealership side of the operation was developed in 1987.
Rapid's headcount - 96
Board members - John McCartney, managing director; Keith Weaver, finance director; Steve Rush, marketing director; Mike Saunders, sales director; Graham Perry, operations director
Rapid's year end - 30 September
Last year's turnover - # 13.2 million
And profit before tax - #2.5 million
Reseller base - Carshalton, Surrey
Other office locations - Reading and Cambridge
Lines sold - Compaq, IBM, Toshiba, Hewlett Packard, Apple, Monotype, Epson, Uxam, Silicon Graphics, Phase One, Digital, Monotype, Mitsubishi, Radius, Microtek, Viewsonic, Microsoft, Adobe, Macromedia and FileMaker
Accreditation held - Applecentre; Toshiba direct reseller and authorised repair centre; Compaq server reseller; IBM business partner; HP reseller; UMAX VAiR; Silicon Graphics VAD; Phase One reseller; Digital authorised reseller; Monotype dealer; Epson dealer; Mitsubishi reseller; Radius DV reseller; Microtek Product Centre; Viewsonic reseller; Microsoft solution provider; Adobe reseller; Macromedia reseller and FileMaker reseller.
Key accounts - Manchester United FC museum
Main distributors - Computer 2000, Ingram Micro, Computers Unlimited and Principal
Main competitors - Computacenter and GE.
The biggest challenge Rapid is going to face this year The successful acquisition of other resellers for growth and the integration of those acquisitions into the Rapid Group.
Thing to watch in the next 12 months Umax. It's about to launch a range of networking products - I think it's worth watching as this vendor will get bigger and bigger as the year goes on.
The role of distributors The relationship between manufacturers, distributors and resellers is vital to the success of any product. It's extremely expensive for manufacturers to employ the skills needed to bring their product to market successfully.
Distributors should have the focus to ensure market penetration and therefore financial success for a product.
Resellers are then able to rely on the distributors, not only for product supply and stock-holding, but for product information, price protection and technical support where necessary.
Issue that would make life easier from a business point of view In an ideal world, continuity of product and earlier notification of product end of life. Because we sell mainly into the corporate arena, we are asked to recommend products to fulfil a particular user task.
Once a PC or Mac has been specified, it's tested and hopefully approved by the customer. Should this product line cease manufacture, or be changed in any way, it usually has to go through customer testing once more.
We would ideally like manufacturers to make us aware of product changes much earlier to allow us to react more quickly for our customers' benefit.
Give your views on the three employees of reseller CCL, who lost their court case when it was discovered they were approaching former customers It's interesting to read the article on CCL, and it's great news for all businesses that the company triumphed.
Resellers are increasingly including clauses in their employee contracts that forbid ex-staff members from getting in contact with the client base within a reasonable period of time from them leaving the company.
The IT industry is no different from any other in that some sales people believe a client 'belongs' to them. In reality, it's the reseller's client and should continue being serviced by the company even after the sales person leaves.
There will always be the customers who wish to follow the sales person, but perhaps this is a failing by the company to ensure contact with the client by more than one person within their organisation.
At a corporate level, customers use the reseller for its immense resource and knowledge and, although the 'relationship' with our sales contact is very important, it's often not as important as what the company as a whole can offer.
I can imagine it would be extremely difficult for an IT manager to justify a reseller change based on its sales contact moving to another organisation, when the reseller has been doing such a superb job.