Phil Birbeck

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Career so far My career started in the Woolworths Management Training Scheme before joining Dixons in 1989 as a manager designate. This followed a number of promotions, including store and regional management roles, and then a move to PC World in late 2000. At PC World I spent almost six years as operations director, progressing to strategy director and then followed by two years as managing director for PC City in Spain. I returned to the UK to become managing director for DSG Business in January 2010, taking responsibility for both PC World Business and Equanet.

If you could be anyone else for a week, who would you be and what would you do? I’d be a Barcelona fan. Mainly I would enjoy the taste of success. As a Sunderland fan, I probably couldn’t cope with more than a week.

Cloud – friend or foe? Both. The cloud opens up almost endless possibilities to make organisations more agile and enable growth, but the industry appears reluctant to demystify cloud solutions for the customer. At Equanet we spend a lot of time understanding our customers’ businesses before ever making recommendations about IT – or more specifically, cloud solutions. As part of that process we find customers are initially very concerned about control and security – and clearly there is a solution to these concerns

Has 2011 been as bad as everyone said it would be? Not really. As always, some parts of the economy appear much more resilient than others. Customers appear to be very cautious around managing cash, showing they learnt the lesson from 2008/9. The business cases are more rigorous than ever for the high-value projects, but mid-market and above still seem prepared to invest in their futures.

What would you have as your last meal? Steak and chips and a good bottle of red wine. Probably Italian.

Who would you like to be stuck in a lift with? This is a close one. Either Nelson Mandela or Kate Moss.

Have any of your predictions come true this year? Yes, all of them, apart from my budget of course!

What do you see as the channel’s biggest challenge in 2012? The channel will not be short of challenges in 2012. The biggest threat though could be another credit crunch which will be bad news for customers and the channel alike. There are a lot of signs pointing to this if politicians around Europe don’t act more decisively on sovereign debt.

What is the best part of your day? It has to be first thing in the morning. At this point in the day everything is still possible. This is only occasionally beaten by the end of the day, if I’ve achieved more than you thought possible.

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