Channel not immune from Greek debt crisis - analyst

Context insists channel firms are all in the same boat

The IT channel will suffer as a result of the Greek debt crisis, according to Context, but it insists most players will be affected in equal measure.

Greece is on the brink of leaving the eurozone after the Greek people rejected an international bailout at the weekend.

The analyst's founder, Jeremy Davies, said although the ongoing uncertainty surrounding the country's economic situation will be bad news, the channel is resilient.

"Anything that destabilises the market is bad for business but experience has shown we tend to get over it," he said. "It may take a while, but we get over it. The whole Greece thing is having an effect on the euro and is making it much cheaper so it is a lot more expensive to buy stuff in.

"If the value of the euro drops even more, that's going to have an effect on prices. But then that applies to everyone, not just the IT sector. It won't be that anybody is disadvantaged; it will just be a shift in pricing. Everyone is affected in equal measure - it's not one vendor over another. A lot of the larger vendors have got similar exposure in Europe."

But he did say that some channel firms may be able to take advantage from the situation if they made wise moves in the past.

"The big boys out there, most are exposed in equal measure so I don't see instability in the market will favour one vendor over another - unless of course one has done some hedging and has bought a whole bunch of stuff and is able to make more on it," he said. "There was the whole business with hard disk some years ago where some distributors and vendors made a lot of money because they had a whole bunch of stock they could get rid of at better prices. But that is unusual."

Context research released last week shows 41 per cent of the 3,500 resellers surveyed across western Europe predicted an improvement in their business this year.

Davies said there is a feeling of cautious optimism across the region.

"Obviously you've got somewhere like Spain where they are a bit more bullish because they've had a bit of a rebound, but generally speaking the level of optimism is there [across western Europe]," he said. "You can't say everyone is wildly optimistic that business is going to turn on its head and be fantastic, but there is no doom and gloom. It's mildly optimistic."