Westcon-Comstor completes EMEA outsourcing project amid takeover rumours
Project sees roles in 52 countries offloaded to outsourcing specialist Genpact
Distributor Westcon-Comstor has completed its back-office overhaul with outsourcing specialist Genpact, as speculation of its potential takeover continues.
The scheme - which has seen roles covering 52 countries outsourced to the business process outsourcing (BPO) specialist - got underway in EMEA two years ago, as various posts were shifted to Romania in a move which affected almost one in six of its then 1,900 staff in the region. In 2016 the outsourcing initiative took effect across Westcon-Comstor's Asia-Pacific operations, with the programme expanded into North America this year. The distributor has not announced how many staff globally were impacted by the process.
Alongside the BPO initiative was a concurrent implementation of a new SAP ERP platform. The software, which took three years to deploy, went live in Europe six months ago, and the distributor pointed to problems caused by the rollout as a major contributory factor in the massive 30 per cent sales decline it endured in its EMEA business in FY17.
But CEO Dolph Westerbos predicted that the investments in its back-office foundations will serve the company well in the years to come.
"These business process improvements will enable our sales teams to spend less time on administration and more time helping customers grow their business," he said. "Combined with the completion of our global ERP rollout, the company is now optimised to take full advantage of future opportunities at an accelerated, more efficient pace."
"We have been on an intense transformation and modernisation journey these past years, and certainly not without challenges. But being the global distribution partner for many of our vendors and customers, with operations in every corner on earth, we needed to provide a consistent and compliant operating model to scale our business further. Our employees have managed unprecedented change, and I am very proud of their achievements. We will continue to optimise our operational processes, but with this initiative complete, we have the foundation for long-term, sustainable success for our company, as well as the strengthened ability to accelerate our customers' success."
The long-term future of the company is still subject to some major uncertainty, as current owner Datatec has been in discussions to sell the distributor since early this year. Having initially published several stock market updates alluding to mysterious discussions about a deal concerning one part of its business, Datatec revealed a month ago that the talks related to a potential $800m sale of Westcon-Comstor. Suitors including Synnex, Arrow, and ALSO have all been linked to a potential buyout, but a transaction is still yet to be agreed.