C2000 throws open credit doors

Distributor reveals significant proportion of its credit offerings are underused, and urges resellers to take advantage

Computer 2000 (C2000) had almost £1bn of credit available to its resellers last year, but only £350m to £400m of that was used at one time, it has revealed.

Speaking at its annual Vendor Partner Summit in central London, Peter Hubbard, UK and Ireland managing director, used the credit scenario as an example of the firm's growth capability.

“This is what we use to fuel growth in the reseller channel, and it means there is still a lot of opportunity to grow," he said.

He cited the firm’s Credit Elevator initiative as a way in which smaller VARs can be encouraged to grow, with lines building up from £5,000 to up to £300,000 if direct debit criteria are met.

Hubbard said the distributor, which has 8,000 customers with 14,000 to 15,000 account buying points, is looking to build on its "record" 2011 as it strives to become a £2bn business.

The distributor’s business is now evenly split between corporate SIs (32 per cent), SMB (31 per cent) and retail (37 per cent), he revealed.

“Last year the focus was on our collection of specialist approaches and how that gave us diversity in the marketplace to make us a stable partner [for vendors] and a one-stop shop partner for resellers,” Hubbard said.

“If somebody is coming to us for one product, we hope to sell them something else from another range as well. “We are going to really focus on the multi-channel approach to the market, with the right breadth of customers that we want to talk to.”

And the firm is in a confident position following a strong 2011 financial performance, he said. “We had a record year last year with three out of four quarters being a record,” he said. “We are ambitious but we believe we can do even better."