Ingram UK boss hails showcase comeback

Brent McCarty praises new marketing director and heralds a positive future as distribution giant holds first major showcase event in 10 years

After 10 years of keeping a lower profile than some of its closest rivals, Ingram Micro UK has emerged back on the showcase scene with a bang, after a successful first SMB Alliance event.

Ingram is riding high after being appointed the first end-to-end solution distributor in the UK last month for Dell, and has more plans afoot to increase its value-add to its partner base.

And the event yesterday at the MKDons stadium in Milton Keynes (see picture) - its first large-scale event for a decade - featured familiar names such as Apple, Microsoft, HP, Dell, Acer, Fujitsu, Cisco and many more. It got off to a flying start with a keynote from Microsoft's chief envisioning officer Dave Coplin.

Speaking to CRN towards the end of the day, Brent McCarty said business was on a continual upward spiral for Ingram.

"This has been a great event - over 600 registered resellers, 100-plus people from our vendor partners and 75 Ingram reps under one roof.

"On top of that, we are right on plan for the business this year and have been driving multiple changes to the European organisation and the UK. Every single one of our investments has paid off."

He praised the distributor's new marketing director, Maria Jackson, who joined the company earlier this year for doing an "amazing job" so far.

"She has done something that we would not have been able to do a year ago," he said. "What she has brought is a change in how we believe we can add a lot of value to the channel. We are already planning for next year's event."

McCarty added that confidence across the industry as a whole was definitely stronger, with healthy demand for product and overall growth.

And he said that Ingram UK as a whole was ready for the next chapter, with its office move scheduled for later this month.

"Our staff are super excited about that," he said. "Staff are absolutely critical to success. When people love doing what they do, the results come and there is a different vibe here at Ingram UK now and that is before we move to a brand new building. We want them to have fun as well as work hard - people are the most valuable asset of any business."