'Our UK channel business has grown exponentially' - Dell channel boss Tomlin on reasons behind Westcoast partnership

Rob Tomlin claims that Dell’s UK channel business has doubled in size over the last three years as he opens up on adding Westcoast as its fifth distributor

Dell believes it saw room for another distributor in the UK market after claiming to have nearly doubled its channel business in the country over the last three years.

Earlier this month, Dell signed Westcoast as its fifth distributor in the UK. The deal will see the country's largest distributor offer Dell Technologies' entire portfolio including client solutions such as notebooks, workstations and desktops as well as IT infrastructure including server, storage, data protection and HCI.

Historically known for its close ties with HP, Westcoast signed with Lenovo in 2014 to boost the vendor's penetration in the consumer market.

This month's newly inked partnership with Dell now means that Westcoast is now selling with the world's top-three PC vendors.

Speaking to CRN, Dell's UK channel boss Rob Tomlin said that Dell's channel business has nearly doubled over the last three years, which prompted a search for an additional distributor in the UK.

The partnership came after Dell surpassed $100bn in revenue globally in its last financial year, up 17 per cent on the previous year.

The addition of Westcoast will mean that Dell now sells through five distributors in the UK: Arrow, Exertis, Ingram, Tech Data and Westcoast.

Tomlin said that Dell is growing "exponentially" in the UK market and believes that the vendor has an "unlimited opportunity" to gain market share.

"We have absolutely accelerated in recent times. Dell's ability to consistently supply from a manufacturing perspective during the last two years, both to our distributors and to our partners, has enabled Dell and its partners to take vast amounts of market share up to the point where we are now the number one in the marketplace for commercial clients in the UK and has taken big share in the US and become number one," he said.

"If you go back three, four or five years ago, that would have been challenging for us."

Tomlin said that the Westcoast partnership became a reality after "many, many meetings over many years" claiming that it "felt like the right time to bring Westcoast into the family".

The UK channel boss said Westcoast's has a fiercely loyal customer base and added that the distributor has put in investment into building a large and dedicated Dell business unit.

"Westcoast does a brilliant job of selling to what is a very loyal account base who have always worked with Westcoast for many, many years. They will definitely consider a product Westcoast sells due to their proactive model and the value-add in what they do,"

Tomlin added that there's no risk of Dell being overdistributed in the UK market after adding its fifth distributor to its roster.

"In our market size, you can't have too many distributors when you're of a certain scale; you can't be over distributed. Before now, we probably weren't ready to have Westcoast and Westcoast probably wasn't ready to have us.

"Dell is the only true end-to-end provider in the marketplace. The market's evolved, you've seen our competitors do certain things and the timing is just right. We are obviously the largest channel business in the market in the UK, and pretty much globally. And I think we are the right proposition for Westcoast right now and all the distributors, and we're the right proposition for partners."