Beta retunes sales force with more specialised approach
Two new sales teams created and headcount increased in bid to offer more specialised sales support
Beta Distribution has rejigged its sales structure in a bid to see it recognised as a "major player in this space".
The London-based distributor - whose heritage has been in consumables such as office supplies - has previously indicated to CRN its move into the storage and enterprise world. It has now restructured its sales force to accommodate this change, and to try to offer more specialised support to its vendors and resellers.
This restructure sees the creation of a Premier sales team - a general sales force backed up by vendor specialists - and a Major Accounts team, which is focused on Beta's biggest resellers. These teams will work across all Beta's products, but will "have within the teams enterprise and technology specialists", according to a statement from Beta.
Beta's VAR team, created in January and designed to support resellers through the sales process, has also been expanded and now has six staff.
All these teams are now backed up by product and industry specialists in Beta's Technology Solutions Business Development team.
Steve Soper, Beta's managing director, said the changes have been geared towards giving the distributor increased attention from its resellers and vendors.
"This new sales structure will not only reaffirm to existing vendors and partners that we are serious about becoming a major player in this space, but will also make those who have yet to experience Beta have another look and see what we can do for their business," he said.
"With this new structure, and the variety of routes to market it brings, we will be able to offer vendors a best-fit sales channel depending on their product type. Combine that with enhanced product expertise in each sales team, then it really is a very powerful proposition for both our vendors and our resellers."
Nigel Morris, marketing director at Beta, said previously the distributor's sales force was not divided up by specialisms and was "just split up between people". But the new structure, which will become effective on 1 September, is now designed to reflect the diversity of its resellers and vendors.
"From our point of view now, when a new vendor is looking for a partner in the UK, if he looks at this structure, we can fit our sales approach to the type of product the vendor is bringing," he said.
"The formality of it means we can have a far clearer proposition for the vendors. But also the resellers should get better services out of this because we have got both product and partner specialists in our teams."