Director of strategy, Northamber
What's the biggest challenge facing the industry no-one is talking about yet?
Consolidation. The number of UK-only VADs who have the infrastructure to be able to truly support UK resellers with proactive sales, marketing, technical, credit and logistics continues to dwindle quickly. The role of distributors like us, however, in providing flexibility and scalability to development brands and local resellers is higher than ever. While this is positive for Northamber as it leaves us in a stronger position in the market as there are no other disties who can provide our benefits and flexibility, it leads to us having to say no to a lot of vendors who approach us.
How has 2017 been for you?
2017 has been good. We have made significant progress in growing our VAD business around three strong pillars of network infrastructure solutions, audiovisual and document management. We have been extremely proud to see the progression and growth from our new graduate scheme with three intakes over the last 12 months and some strong future business leaders already emerging from these.
Which global city best matches your personality?
New York. It's multi-cultural and never stops.
What makes you nervous?
Like most the uncertainty caused by Brexit and the resulting forex variance leads to some challenges. We will definitely sleep easier once we better understand how Brexit will unfold.
If you could eat one type of food for the rest of your life, what would it be?
Pizza is my original love but steak goes better with Scotch so…
Sum up the channel in three words
Dynamic, exciting, evolving.
