Hammer turns from farmer to hunter

Distributor on recruitment drive following uptick in business

James Ward: Some of our sales guys spent more time farming existing accounts than hunting new ones

Storage distributor Hammer has tweaked its internal sales structure and is hiring 10 more heads as it steps up its focus on new business development.

From 1 June, Steve Cowley, who is currently storage products sales manager, will head a new team focused on hunting down fresh business.

The goal is to widen Hammer’s customer base outside its traditional IT reseller stronghold, explained James Ward, managing director of Hammer.

“Some of our sales guys for good reason spent more time last year farming existing accounts than hunting new ones,” Ward said.

“We have had a better couple of quarters and now is a good time to invest in new sales people and find fresh customers. Our business is changing rapidly as we become more focused on the industrial sector and verticals rather than the IT sector.”

The recruitment drive will boost Hammer’s sales headcount from 60 to 70. Ward predicted many of the new recruits would be school leavers.

“You get more loyalty that way and you can turn them into proper sales people, rather than taking them from other distributors,” he said.

Ward claimed that sales were up by 10 per cent quarter on quarter in each of Hammer’s last two quarters. Although Hammer is a big Intel server distributor, Ward intimated that an increasing chunk of the firm’s revenue was coming from customers that make embedded devices, such as hospital scanners.