Seven distribution bosses reveal the rival they most respect
Often fighting over the same turf, it's fair to say distributors don't always get on. But CRN sister publication Channel Partner Insight tracked down seven distie bosses who weren't above expressing a grudging respect for a competitor.
CRN's pan-global sister publication Channel Partner Insight tracked down seven distribution bosses from the UK, Europe and US and asked them which of their competitors they respected the most and why. Here is a flavour of the article, which can be read in full here.
Nominator: Hayley Roberts, CEO, Distology
Nominee: Tech Data
Although they are not a direct competitor of mine, I think that TechData are an interesting company who seem to consistently do well given their size. With such a diverse tech portfolio, not only do they keep the majority of their vendors happy, their sales people need to be able to sell and support literally millions of different product lines and maintain the same level of standard and support. The logistics of delivery must be immense, so I take my hat off to them
Seven distribution bosses reveal the rival they most respect
Often fighting over the same turf, it's fair to say distributors don't always get on. But CRN sister publication Channel Partner Insight tracked down seven distie bosses who weren't above expressing a grudging respect for a competitor.
Nominator: Mike Baur, CEO, ScanSource
Nominees: Westcon and Blue Star
What we learned over the years in the markets that we serve is that there's generally no one competitor and they're all very good guys. I know all of them.
I think for all of us, the biggest challenge has always been to convince the suppliers of the value of two-tier distribution, master agency and the channel and I think we all relish the opportunity to sit down with the suppliers and build a value proposition. All of our competitors share the enthusiasm for the success of the channel and so I commend all of them for being crazy enough to want to be in the channel. Generally over time we have gained respect, but early on people diminished our value proposition.
There's one company called Blue Star. I've known them since the early days. They're in Louisville, Kentucky, and they are in barcoding. If you look at that part of our business, our barcode and point-of-sale business, which we've been in for 27 years, they're the rival I see as being the closest in a value proposition to ScanSource historically.
And then from the other large part of our business, our telecom communications business, Westcon has historically been the rival that we would put side by side with our value proposition.
Whenever a Wall Street investor would look at the comparable company to ScanSource, it's Westcon as a semi-public company that they would compare our financial results with, which is indicative of our value proposition.
See full article on Channel Partner Insight
Also featured in the article:
Alex Tatham, managing director, Westcoast
Adam Davison, sales and marketing director, Cloud Distribution
Ian Kilpatrick, strategic advisor, Nuvias Group
Klaus Schlichtherle, CEO Infinigate
Also on Channel Partner Insight today:
From Capgemini to Computacenter: Who are Europe's top 35 public cloud providers?
CPI explainer: How should the channel respond to the rise of marketplaces?