From Dell's channel majority push to Bytes-Phoenix union: Five things we've learned this month
What are the key takeaways from business in the channel this month?
1. MISCO IS DRAWING A LINE UNDER ITS COST-CUTTING
Misco has chosen Oracle NetSuite OneWorld as its new ERP system, a £750,000 investment the IT reseller hopes will reassure the market that it has finished swinging the axe.
CEO Alan Cantwell said that after a protracted "painful restructuring", partners should take its announcement as a signal that Misco has moved on, and is now open for business.
Cantwell said the impact of recent cuts in the UK and Hungary is that the rest of Misco's European operations now have a better chance of success, particularly in the value-add market.
"Spain, Italy and Sweden are more of our traditional core Misco businesses, and they need to evolve, need to move up the value chain and develop more value-add services, to become relevant.
"Holland, on the other hand, is a far more mature service delivery company - it's much larger, much more profitable.
"And we've been able to help [these countries] by restructuring Hungary and the UK and the cost base in the UK that would ultimately flow down to them."
2. RESELLERS ARE WORRIED BY PRICING
Channel consolidation has stepped up over the past 18 months, forcing distributors to focus on optimisation and leading resellers to worry about pricing and procurement costs, according to the latest Context ChannelWatch Survey.
The study, which profiles the views, activities and intentions of 7,500 global resellers, revealed that over 30 major distributor M&A deals have taken place in western Europe in the past 18 months.
Across 20 EMEA countries there was a three per cent year-on-year reduction of active resellers in the 90 days from March to May 2017, according to Context's Reseller Count Metrics tracking.
3. WESTCON IS HALTING DATATEC'S PROGRESS
Revenue for Westcon in Europe has dragged down the outlook of parent company Datatec. Datatec stated that consolidated revenue for H1 FY18 is expected to be $2.9bn (£2.3bn), compared with $3.0bn in H1 FY17. Headline loss per share will be five to six US cents, down from 9.1 US cents in the comparable period last year.
"It's painful times for Datatec," said Kate Hanaghan, chief research officer at TechMarketView. "The primary root cause of this performance was the Westcon subsidiary, which continued to experience disruption ‘as a result of the final SAP implementation in EMEA'. Additional headwinds came in the shape of finance charges, amortisation expense and effective tax rate - all of which were higher than last year."
4. DELL IS GOING FOR CHANNEL MAJORITY
Dell EMC's indirect business will account for more than 60 per cent of its overall revenue by 2020, according to chief commercial officer Marius Haas (pictured), who said during a keynote Q&A session at the EMEA Canalys Channel Forum that Dell's indirect business will become its main source of revenue in the next few years.
At Dell EMC World in Las Vegas this spring, Michael Dell pegged the firm's channel business - including EMC's contribution - at $35bn, equating to $7 of every $15 the firm generates in sales.
"When we first looked at the numbers, we said roughly in the $35bn range… we don't have a target to say ‘this route to market is this percentage of our business or our goal'," Haas said. "I think we will be close to 55 to 60 per cent of our revenue flowing through [the channel]."
5. UK CHANNEL HAS NEW £400M PLAYER
Expansion into the north and an increased public sector push were behind Bytes UK's acquisition of Microsoft reseller Phoenix Software, according to Bytes' group managing director.
For the year to 31 October 2016, Phoenix had sales of £118.4m, up from £114.6m a year earlier. The deal with Bytes UK now creates a £400m-a-year-plus operation.
"We have been looking for an acquisition for quite some time to bolster the scale of our operation and the profitability of the UK group," Neil Murphy, group managing director of Bytes UK told CRN.
"Phoenix suited our aspirations. It is a similar business to ours and we are familiar to the market they operate in. They also have a similar culture, which is very people-centric. They have fantastic management, alongside a brilliant team."