SPONSORED: How to innovate in traditional reselling

Nolan Business Solutions says its reseller-focused system can help traditional VARs save precious margin points

The IT channel is known for embracing disruption in a market that is innovating at an unprecedented rate.

But while partners are busy helping their customers transform, it is perhaps easy to forget to turn the lens on themselves.

Resellers may be selling cutting-edge technology to clients, but often they are doing so using dated and fragmented systems, according to Nolan Business Solutions.

Nolan Business Solutions is an Oracle NetSuite and Microsoft partner, but also develops its own IP - a platform aimed specifically at resellers.

The platform, eInteract, provides a host of solutions - including enterprise resource planning, electronic data exchange, standard operating procedure, point of purchase, e-commerce, inventory and accounting - in one system, tailored to the needs of partners.

The system also displays real-time stock figures by partnering with Onetrail, which provides a stream of information directly from distributors.

Mark Hennessy, sales director at Nolan Business Solutions, explained that most resellers are running patchwork-like systems, built from various off-the-shelf and bespoke programmes, to create something that is just about fit for purpose.

"Over the years each reseller has built out their own home-grown solutions with varying degrees of success," he said. "There are a lot of CSV files that get passed around and imported into their systems and it tends to be quite manual.

"Some resellers have done a great job of it and some haven't. Some have half a system working, and often they'll have a developer who has built something and they are then dependent on that developer forever. They get stuck on that version of the software and can't upgrade.

"That is where we are a bit different. We are doing this en masse and it gets automatically upgraded twice a year. We can never get in that situation; it is just not possible."

eInteract is consumed as a service and built on Oracle NetSuite, running in a web browser which means that all updates are applied automatically.

Hennessy said that on the whole, resellers are currently using five or six systems across the width of their businesses, meaning that no single person can easily have visibility over the whole operation.

"You'd be surprised how many resellers still do it all on paper," he added.

The firm claims to count over 10 per cent of the businesses in CRN's Top VARs as eInteract customers, with Hennessy explaining that the system is aimed at resellers with £10m-plus turnover.

A key benefit, he added, is that it allows the reseller to have complete visibility of any one customer, rather than having to build up a picture from multiple fragmented systems.

"If you look at the customer record you can see what sales are doing with them, what accounts are doing, what credit control is doing, what is happening from a technical perspective and so on," he said.

"You get that 360-degree view of the customer because everyone is on the same system."

Why now?

It is no secret that margins in the IT channel are declining, particularly with regards to hardware sales.

Hennessy said that a unified system can help resellers reduce the time spent on administrative tasks, and therefore reduce the cost of each transaction. Depending on the current set-up, partners could also see the cost of their IT estate reduced, if they are paying for one system instead of multiple ones.

He claimed that one reseller saw its average cost of a deal slashed by 20 per cent.

"It is about increasing efficiency for the business and lowering the cost per transaction," he said.

"One reseller saw a 20 per cent reduction in cost per order, so if you are getting pushed on margins, and prices are rising, reducing the cost base is key to retain a competitive advantage.

"Your competitors are doing this stuff and if you want to keep up, you have to update your systems to do so. It could mean that your sales guys could take on five more accounts each without you increasing your costs."