Channel awards

Entries for this year's Channel Awards are now being accepted on the awards website, accessed through www.crn.vnunet.com. Simon Meredith looks at two distribution companies that could be in the running for recognition this year.

UNIPALM AIMS FOR REPEAT SUCCESS

At last year's Channel Awards, Unipalm won Security Distributor of the Year. While this category is not included this year, David Ellis, director of e-security at Unipalm, believes that the company has every chance of succeeding again in 2003.

"We want to provide customers with a proactive service that will help them find profitable sales opportunities. We are rolling out a new e-commerce system to give customers further choices, and we'll continue to launch innovative products and services," he said.

Unipalm is planning to create a new training division, and intends to provide more pan-European activity this year. Ellis believes that the company has a chance of winning the Specialist Distribution Partner of the Year award and even the main Distributor of the Year accolade.

"Traditionally, e-business and e-security have been regarded as fairly niche areas. However, because of our continued growth and coverage, and the strong growth of the sectors we play in, we feel we will also be a contender for Distributor of the Year," he said.

Winning an award is significant to Unipalm, Ellis added. "The awards are a great way of showing that we deliver on our promises. It is easy to talk a good game, but meeting customers' expectations is different. A Channel Award testifies that we are doing this because the resellers do the voting," he said.

Unipalm has a turnover of about £50m in the UK and Ireland, and is part of the pan-European Computerlinks Group. The company's key vendor partners are Check Point, Nokia, Websense, Clearswift, Macromedia, Trend Micro and Internet Security Systems.

CRN analysis
Unipalm is one of the best-known and admired specialist distributors in the UK and must have a good chance in the Specialist Distribution category. The company is growing, and it will be an exceptional achievement if it also makes it into the running for the main award.

MIDWICH TAKES DUAL APPROACH

Midwich is one of those distributors that can't be classified as either a broadliner or a specialist. With sales of £100m in 2002 and 115 staff, it is certainly not a small firm, but it comes nowhere near the big names in size either. And although Midwich has some specialisation in printers, audiovisual and certain storage products, it is not really a focused specialist.

Nick Culley, director of the company, explained that this is why it has more chance of competing for the Corporate and SME Distributor awards than the Specialist and Distributor of the Year awards.

"With our vendor portfolio we are able to service both of these markets. We give specific resellers the information and deals that they need, on time at the right price, and deliver direct to their customer if they wish," he said.

Midwich has been putting additional services in place such as its Mfinance credit service. Teams of dedicated account managers deal with each request for help, case by case.

Culley believes that Midwich also stands a good chance of winning an award because it listens to customers. "Feedback is always taken very seriously, so we would be delighted to know that our customers have voted for us in the Channel Awards. We all work very hard to deliver the best possible service," he said.

An award would mean a lot to the company, he added. "We believe that our staff are the best in the industry. Coupled with our bespoke approach to customers and excellent vendor portfolio, this will hopefully earn us a Channel Award that would make us very proud," he said.

CRN analysis
Falling between the definitions of broadline and specialist makes it harder for companies like Midwich to win, but good distributors deserve to be recognised as much as very big or very specialised ones. If Midwich does a good job for its customers this year, it will be up to those resellers to put it into contention.

Put yourself in the running
Eight categories at this year's Channel Awards will be put to a vote from a shortlist of six companies in each category.

Voting will start in September and continue until late October. The shortlists will be drawn up by a panel of independent judges from entries received between now and 4 July 2003. This means that to win you have to put yourself forward.

It is easy to enter. To post your entry go to www.crn.vnunet.com and click on the 'Channel Awards' button. The eight categories you can enter for are:

• Corporate Vendor of the Year
• SME Vendor of the Year
• Specialist Vendor of the Year
• Corporate Distributor of the Year
• SME Distributor of the Year
• Specialist Distributor of the Year
• Corporate Reseller of the Year
• SME Reseller of the Year

All CRN reader votes will be audited by the Audit Bureau of Circulation.

TELL US YOUR STORIES!

What happened to you at the Channel Awards? To what lengths have you or your company gone to try to win?

Send your stories to [email protected] and we will include them on our Channel Awards page.