C2000 aims high

Sara Yirrell reports from Computer 2000's Vendor Partner Summit on the distributor's plans for growth and its multi-channel approach to market

In the words of that catchy 90s pop song by Yazz and the Plastic Population: The only way is up.

And up is very much the direction Computer 2000 (C2000) is heading as it positions its battleships to grab the majority share in key horizontal markets including retail (consumer electronics), public sector, SMB, enterprise, cloud and mobility.

Speaking at the firm's Vendor Partner Summit in central London last month, Peter Hubbard, UK and Ireland managing director of C2000, said: "Last year the focus was on our collection of specialist approach and how that gave us diversity in the marketplace to make us a stable partner [for vendors] and a one-stop shop partner for resellers.

"If somebody is coming to us for one product, we hope to sell them something else from another range as well."

Hubbard added: "We are going to really focus on the multi-channel approach to the market, with the right breadth of customers that we want to talk to."

As revealed by ChannelWeb last month, the firm has created its public sector Centres of Excellence and is striving to grow wallet share in the space. The public sector division is being headed up by Cathi Low, who joined the distributor from rival Ingram Micro at the beginning of the year.

Speaking at the event, Low said: "The overall public sector opportunity is worth £17.6bn and our specific goal is to increase public sector sales by 15 per cent year on year."

And, despite scepticism in a keynote from analyst Steve Brazier at the event, who cast clouds on the future of retail in its current form, the distributor is confident of growing its retail business to almost £1bn by 2015.

Jo-Anne Foreman (pictured, right), who joined C2000 from Widget last year to head up the retail business, said: "We want to build a solid, retail-focused business in C2000. We are determined to develop a trading relationship with the top 10 consumer electronics (CE) vendors in the market and we are aiming for 30 per cent market share in the CE space."

C2000 is also keen to bring on new talent, and recently launched its own Sales Academy which picks 12 to 15 trainees every quarter and puts them on a sales excellence course. Once the training is completed, they join the various sales teams within C2000.

Hubbard also revealed the firm has developed what it terms a "hunting team", which is responsible for hunting down new business opportunities.

"Business through the hunting team has tripled over the past six months," he said. "It is a multimillion-pound business for us every year."

Credit where it's due

With the emphasis on growth, Hubbard stressed that not only does C2000 want to grow, but it wants to see growth for its resellers and vendor partners.

Using its credit facility as an example of growth potential, Hubbard said last year saw the distributor have almost £1bn of credit lines available, but at any time only £350m to £400m of that was ever used.

"This is what we use to fuel growth in the reseller channel, and it means there is still a lot of opportunity to grow," Hubbard said.

He cited the firm's Credit Elevator initiative as a way through which smaller resellers can be encouraged to grow.

"If a reseller signs up with us on direct debit, we will provide a £5,000 credit line, and if they use 80 per cent of it we will double it and we will continue to add to the credit line if payments are met. This can continue up to £300,000 of credit," he explained.

Hubbard said the distributor also has its full management team in place after a slight rejig earlier this year. The last of those to join will be new sales director Martin Boyce, who starts this month (ChannelWeb 20 March).

And the firm is in a confident position for the future following a strong 2011 financial performance, he said.

"We had a record year last year with three out of four quarters being a record," he added. "We are very ambitious and we believe we can do even better."