HP chooses C2000 as office supply partner

Hewlett Packard is pushing its Office Centres to purchase goods from Computer 2000 after the two companies secured a supply deal.

Hewlett Packard (HP) is pushing its Office Centres to purchase goods from Computer 2000 after the two companies secured a supply deal.

From 3 April, the distributor will be the sole source for the majority of HP products sold to the 120 Office Centres in the UK, but HP has not made the deal exclusive and other distributors may be allowed to step in at a later stage. Resellers will not be prevented from doing business with other distributors should they choose to. Those that deal solely with C2000 will be able to call on the services of a dedicated team of C2000 training staff and on InTouch, the distributor's online purchasing tool.

Nat Hart, managing director of Landscape Printing Systems, one of the four elected centres chosen to oversee the distributor tender, said: "Having a direct set channel will trim away the process for dealing with faulty products or queries, saving the resellers time, effort and money."

Prior to this arrangement, the centres had individual relationships with a number of distributors, but when the number of Office Centre-accredited resellers reached a substantial size, HP suggested they consider joining forces to make the supply chain more efficient.

Bill Hill, manager at HP's SME business, said that when the number of Office Centres reached critical mass, it was suggested they take advantage of the power that consolidated buying wields.

"Buying power is nearest to all their hearts and HP will support them in their move to use this power to broker deals which enable them to do business more effectively," he said.

Andy Dow, general manager of marketing and ebusiness at Computer 2000, said the distributor had, over the last year, developed its SME sales division into the fastest growing part of its business.

C2000 is implementing systems that will enable it to service the HP Office contract and expect it to be in place by 3 April.