Exertis recruits ex-analyst to help guide its organic and acquisitive growth

'When it comes to growing and expanding in new markets, it needs to be data driven; you can't stumble blindly into them', former Context UK boss Jonathan Wagstaff says of his new role at Exertis

Jonathan Wagstaff has joined Exertis from analyst Context to help guide the distributor's growth across Europe.

Wagstaff joined Context in 2014 and was most recently country manager for UK and Ireland, but has now moved into the newly created role of business intelligence manager at Exertis.

A key element of his role will be to interpret data and trends in the market, Wagstaff (pictured) said, to seek out growth potential for Exertis across Europe - both organically and through acquisitions.

"In terms of my role, it's going to be proactively using data to help identify opportunities to see where the markets are growing," he said.

"As Exertis grows and expands in other regions - they have a sizeable business in France and the reach is growing in other parts of Europe - it's about proactively using the data to make strategic decisions in growth and acquisitions.

"Their appetite is to keep growing and tied to that is that margins in the channel are coming more under stress. Long gone are the days when you could get 10 per cent margin on hardware, so you have to find those opportunities to make a difference to balance sheets at end of year and the end of the quarter."

Wagstaff explained that as Exertis continues to grow it becomes more important for it to assess market trends on a pan-European scale, which was key to the creation of his role. Wagstaff will spend time with Exertis in the UK as well as in its premises around Europe.

"A group this size needs to be working in a connected, proactive fashion," he said. "Many in the channel live and die by Context market data. As Exertis is becoming bigger we need to be making use of every available tool. It's becoming more important to identify trends.

"From my time at Context I was amazed at what's happened in the last year because it's not just the big ones, but second-tier distributors are becoming more proactive using data.

"When it comes to growing and expanding in new markets it needs to be data driven; you can't stumble blindly into them."

Wagstaff will report to DCC Technology's group finance and development director Stephen Casey.

"While we have a very strong technology proposition, it's important we continue to identify and translate market opportunities into actions that can benefit our business, and also the business of our vendor partners and reseller customers both in existing and new territories," said Casey.

"Jonathan's experience in data analytics and how the channel operates is ideally suited to fulfilling the task of providing business intelligence that can enable us to take the right decisions to meet our group objectives."