Resellers chew over Scansource centralisation

Distributor pools logistics in central Europe

Centralisation will increase warehouse capacity from 200sqm to 12,000sqm

Scansource Communications has centralised its logistics to mainland Europe in a move that has met a mixed reaction from UK resellers.

The distributor, whose UK business is based on the 2008 acquisition of MTV Telecom, pooled its warehousing in one central European location last month.

This will mean its warehouse capacity will increase from 200sqm to 12,000sqm, UK managing director Patrick Zaman explained in a recent letter to partners leaked to CRN. It has also introduced a new IT system.

“The evolution of our logistics services would be limited in our current situation and as we are getting close to outgrowing the capacity of our warehouse, we have determined the need to move to larger premises to support your growing business,” Zaman stated.

Zaman said he was confident partners would benefit from the new operational services, adding that they will enjoy free standard delivery on all orders until the end of June.

Some partners contacted by CRN said they had experienced some teething problems since the switchover occurred on 17 May. One expressed concerns they would now have to hold stock for support and maintenance deals because they would no longer be able to get handsets or devices couriered out at short notice.

However, other partners said they understood the distributor's motives.

Paul Blundell, managing director of iQual, said: “Clearly Scansource has increased the number of products it sells and has taken on Extreme Networks and Avaya’s full range. To be able to stock all that it understandably needed a larger warehouse facility and it made sense to move towards a central European distribution model.

“On the positive side, the fact it has centralised logistics should mean it i s holding more stock, so there should be fewer issues with equipment being out of stock."

Russell Lux, managing director of Luxtech, said: “UK telecoms firms are not used to dealing with people based abroad to buy telephony systems.”

Scansource Communications did not wish to comment at the time of going to publication.