With just two weeks to go until the 2 July deadline, CRN catches up with some past winners of the Channel Awards who share their own words about why the event is important to them, what winning means and why more companies should bite the bullet and submit an entry
Alex Tatham, managing director of distribution giant Westcoast explains why taking part is so crucial.
"I joined the channel in 1995 at Ideal Hardware. Our team there valued the [then] PC Dealer Channel Awards extremely highly and Ideal won the prized Distributor of the Year several years running. I was hooked then and have committed to enter ever since in every category that we could. I am sure many of us in the channel have been to other award ceremonies - all of which are a third of the size at most of our leading awards.
"In fact, there are very few bigger awards for business categories in Britain. The Channel Awards are iconic, and involve so many in our industry. There is a lot to celebrate as the channel grows ever more important in the delivery of IT cloud, software, hardware and services and is there a more important time to celebrate this success as we emerge from a pandemic with so much great work having been delivered throughout the UK channel?
"These awards require strong entries in every category to maintain their relevance and vendors, distributors and resellers should be highlighting their success to a panel of their peers. So what if you don't win?! It makes you try harder next year and focuses management's attention on successes and competition - which in turn drives improvement.
"At Westcoast, we put a lot of effort into our entry and circulate the entry internally before the nominations are announced showing all our people what we are proud of each year. It buys them into these awards too and makes them proud of our business.
"The channel awards are a force for good and for improvement. You've got to enter!"
See Next Page for Neil Sawyer, UK&I channel director at HP Inc's views...
