Lenovo appoints Northamber as third UK&I distributor for ISG business

Distributor joins existing distributors Tech Data and Arrow as Lenovo looks to make waves in SMB and mid-market space

Lenovo has appointed Northamber as its third UK and Ireland distributor for its Infrastructure Solutions Group (ISG) business as it looks to gain more traction in the SMB and mid-market.

The agreement with Northamber will give more UK channel partners access to its server, storage and solutions products, Lenovo claims.

Based in Surrey, Northamber ranked #18 by turnover in CRN's recent list of the top 40 UK distributors you need to know. The firm turned over £52.8m in its year ending 30 June 2020, up five per cent on the previous year.

Northamber becomes the third distributor in the UK for Lenovo's ISG business alongside existing players Arrow and Tech Data.

Speaking to CRN, general manager of Lenovo's UK&I Infrastructure Group, Ian Jeffs, said Northamber will open up a new set of partners for Lenovo.

"We've grown significantly in HCI and storage and we do really well on HPC and AI. The area that we probably want to focus on most as a growth area this year is SMB and mid-market.

"We know Northamber from many moons ago when they were part of the IBM distribution network, and I managed distribution for IBM back then.

"Northamber are making some really key investments in us as well building a strong Lenovo team and we think they'll be successful."

In a statement, Northamber managing director Alex Phillips added: "Northamber is delighted to be working with Lenovo Infrastructure Solutions Group. Northamber's heritage was built on distributing server and storage into SMB and Mid-market; the addition of Lenovo's portfolio and its clear commitment to the SMB channel will allow us to bring an exciting new offering to this space through our loyal partners."

Lenovo is coming off the back of a huge year of growth, with group revenues growing by 20 per cent to $60.74bn.

Jeffs added that Lenovo's ISG business in the UK and Ireland grew at around 30 per cent year on year last year, hitting its target of doubling its market share in the region.

This year's target is to become the third largest vendor by market share in the UK, added Jeffs.

The vendor has typically sat at number four in the server market, said Jeffs behind players like Dell, HPE and Inspur.

To help push towards its new target, Lenovo doubled the size of its UK and Ireland ISG channel team earlier this year and near trebled the amount of money available for channel marketing and business development funds around nine months ago.

"We're talking now with partners about how we bring programmes together and their campaigns together. We want to go on that journey of investing more and giving them more resources."

"We're saying to the channel, you can earn good money, this is how you do it and, more importantly, we're going to help you do that as well."