COVID-19 crisis has 'proved case for the channel' - CCS Media boss
“None of the global manufacturers could have mobilised the amount of people and organisations we’ve mobilised by working together," James Hardy tells CRN
The COVID-19 crisis has provided the perfect case study for the technology channel, according to the boss of one of the UK's largest resellers.
Talking to CRN, CCS Media managing director James Hardy said any impressions that vendors alone can support the end-user community will be eliminated by the events of the last month, which has seen distributors, resellers and specialist services firms link arms to support critical industries and enable mass remote working.
"Every year, CRN asks executives to describe the value of the channel to friends or family and people who don't know what it is. Personally, I don't even try, as they always ask why you wouldn't go straight to the manufacturer," he said.
"For me, this is the first case where the value of the distributors, specialist services partners and broadline resellers like CCS Media, Softcat and CDW has become so clear. Can you imagine when Boris Johnson stands on stage and calls for a digital Dunkirk, or says that every organisation needs to prepare for at least 20 per cent of their workforce to work at home, that any of the manufacturers could have made it a possibility for hundreds of thousands of end-users businesses to still operate?"
CCS Media moved to a remote working model pre-crisis, and Hardy said the reseller had replicated what took it six months to roll out internally at multiple customers in just five days.
The Chesterfield-based outfit has also formed an alliance around change management to reflect the fact that its customers are undergoing radical organisational design change in terms of where their staff are and how they communicate with them.
"None of the global manufacturers - whether that's HP, Dell, Microsoft - could have mobilised the amount of people and organisations we've mobilised by working together. It's phenomenal how we've supported end-users businesses," Hardy said.
"CCS Media have done okay, but that's also the case for 99 per cent of the channel. This COVID pandemic really demonstrates the positive impact that the IT channel has for the UK economy."