Ideal Hardware rethinks staff structure after split

Ideal Hardware has embarked on a staff restructuring exercise and set up an operational board of directors to oversee the day-to-day running of the firm following its split into three entities.

As revealed in PC Dealer (14 October), the distributor - now split into three divisions, Ideal Hardware, Ideal Unisolve and IT Network - will operate under a holding company renamed Inter X.

It has appointed an operational board of directors and restructured the sales team within the Ideal Hardware arm, which remains as the product distribution operation.

Ronan McDonald, managing director of Ideal's 12-strong operational board, will oversee the distribution arm, which has had its sales team split into corporate, SME and European areas.

Their respective sales directors and operational board members are Richard Russ, Gordon Milner and Alex Tatham. Ideal has also set up a marketing development group, of which McDonald is director.

McDonald said the group would give Ideal a better spread of resources.

He added there had been no redundancies as a result: 'If anything, we have increased the number of staff.' Staff numbers have risen to 420 from 300 since 1997.

Other members of the firm's operational board are components business director Seamus Twohig, solutions business director Jason Rabbetts and systems and services director Ian French.