Ctg sit23 hub banner.jpg

Customers don't understand the difference between certified refurbished and grey market products - distie

Distie’s head of refurbishment division on the importance of circular IT in battling counterfeit goods and why distribution needs to do more around sustainability

The channel should be doing more to educate customers on the differences between authorised refurbished vendor products and their grey market alternatives, according to Westcon-Comstor's Alastair Borissow.

The distributor drafted in Borissow (pictured) last year to head its new Circular Technology Solutions (CTS) wing which specialises in Cisco Refresh - the vendor's remanufactured equipment unit which Borrisow headed before joining Westcon-Comstor.

CTS stocks and orders refurbished equipment from the vendor and creates "blended solutions", which combine Cisco's refurbished kit with new equipment.

Vendors must have their own take-back and refurbishment scheme to work with CTS so the distie can be certain that the products are licensed and authorised by the vendor.

"There is a lot of talk around remanufacturing but it's interesting that a lot of the players in that are - from a vendor and a distributor perspective - non-authorised," he explained to CRN.

"That's really where it can get a bad reputation if people confuse genuine OEM remanufactured product with used product that may just be floating around on the market.

"As we get this greater push towards sustainability, customers say, ‘We should be leveraging more used product', but the problem is when they don't understand the difference between an OEM remanufactured version and an off-the-market version.

"It's about making sure that customers know that difference and it's part of our role and the reseller's role to educate customers on it."

Borissow explained that when customers buy from the grey market, they are at risk of receiving products of dubious origins and that aren't supported by vendors or distributors.

CTS offers vendor-verified "blended solutions" that bypass this risk while showing customers the financial benefits of taking part in the circular economy, he added.

"It's about making sure that they get the message around the value and the benefit from both sustainability and competitiveness," he elaborated.

"But also avoiding that being a blanket statement so they know that it's only a good thing for your business as long as you know what you're buying is genuine and from an authorised source. So the message isn't ‘Buy used and everything's great', it is buying a genuine remanufactured product and that way they're getting the best benefit."

Getting the message

Borissow joined Westcon-Comstor in January last year after a decade of heading Cisco Refresh. During his time at the vendor, he said that he worked with the distributor to scale the sustainable solutions business but "struggled" to convey the financial benefits of circular IT to the rest of the channel.

He joined Westcon-Comstor because he believes, as a distributor, it is best positioned in the channel to educate resellers and customers about the advantages of the circular economy.

"Distribution is really a conduit to pass that knowledge through to our resellers," he said.

"That's where CTS was born with creating a focused specialisation around circular technology. Because until you get that focus, you don't get any real traction because, ultimately, it is always considered an afterthought."

An increasing number of the distie's global customers are starting to join the circular economy, Borissow said, but that knowledge of the benefits of the refurbished tech is still "patchy" among resellers.

"We have some resellers throughout EMEA who absolutely get it, and they specialise in this and they use it as a differentiator," he stated.

"But I'd say that the biggest challenge is getting that broader awareness across the entire reseller base. We have over 10,000 resellers throughout EMEA, so it's trying to get that message through, and I think it's picking up because we're seeing those specialist resellers often win deals when sustainability and price become a part of that conversation."

It's not just resellers who are having this issue, as Borissow believes that circular IT is a "bit of an unknown" for distributors and that Westcon-Comstor's specialisation is a differentiator for winning new business.

"As a whole, a lot of distributors may not understand that end-to-end process and the real value circular technology delivers, hence they treat it like just another product," he said.

"If you look at it as a point product, I can understand why others may not be focusing on it, but if you look at it as an overall value-added story - which is what we're doing - then I think it definitely is compelling.

"But I don't think distributors, as a whole, are doing enough."

A year into his role, Borissow will soon be adding Juniper to CTS' portfolio and he said that the unit is seeing success as global customers are utilising it to decommission a product from one country, refurbishing it and then redeploying it in another country.

"The work we've done with the vendors at the moment has created that framework, but now it's actually working with customers on their true circularity within their own organisation," he said.

"The feedback we've had from all our large global customers is that's exactly what they want to do because it's complicated and they need a supply chain logistics expert to be able to do that for them.

"Ultimately, they don't want to reinvent the wheel if there's someone who can do it for them."