Beta Distribution makes storage switch in enterprise push

London-based distributor seeks to hit £200m mark and see storage account for half of its business by 2016

Beta Distribution has revealed its intention to focus on the storage space and wants to see this account for half its overall business by 2016, as it targets a move towards the enterprise world.

Speaking with CRN, Nigel Morris, marketing director at the privately owned London-based distributor, said the company initially began as a calculator repair firm when it was founded 30 years ago. Beta then expanded into fax machines and then around 10 years ago began focusing on consumables - printers, toner cartridges and ink cartridges - and this accounted for 75 per cent of its business two years ago.

"We are now going through our latest transformation, which is moving away from transactional products like consumables into products based around data, storage and services associated with that," Morris said.

"The best illustration I can give, is that four or five years ago, storage products were around five or six per cent of our business - this year they will be 40 per cent of the business," Morris said.

Morris went on to say he expects storage to account for around half of Beta's total business by the end of next year.

Beta has enjoyed some sharp growth in recent years, with its revenues rising from £67.4m in 2009, to £158m for its last fiscal year ending 31 March 2015. Morris said Beta is hoping to hit the £200m mark in 2016.

In line with Beta's switch to the storage space, the distie has signed up a number of new vendors in the past few weeks, with it taking on US-based storage vendor Exablox, storage software player FalconStor and according to Ricky Patel, Beta's enterprise business manager, the firm is looking to take on another vendor in the next quarter.

"What we are looking to do is bring on two or three vendors at a time, develop a plan, execute it with the target-market resellers and then go and create additional reseller partners."

Enterprise push
Patel said Beta is going to focus on backup and archive recovery storage, and is looking to move more into the enterprise space.

"We have commodity-based storage with flash keys and we have nailed that, and that's been a great success for us. We are now introducing entry-level enterprise storage and then we will look to go and partner with the high-end enterprise solutions.

"With this new [enterprise] stuff we are going to talk with the Softcats, the Kelways, and it's all project-based and an average deal will between £20,000 and £50,000.

"Typically right now we are looking at end-users with 250 to 4,000 employees, that is the sweet spot for vendors we are working with currently. Our ambition for a year's time is to be hitting that top-end enterprise space with FTSE 100 [end customers]."

Morris said what makes Beta different is that the distributor does not have a warehouse of its own.

"One of the reasons we have been able to grow so fast is that we outsource our warehouse. We are a distributor who outsources our distribution capabilities, so we don't have a warehouse manager or a distribution director," he explained.

"The benefit of that from our point of view is that if we decide to bring on a new range of products, like we are doing now, we simply ask DPD, who are our warehouse, to move the tape and make the room a bit bigger. It means we have been able to grow so fast, because we can bring on all these products without worrying about bricks and mortar."