The SMAs and LA Micro - meet the contenders

We speak to reseller LA Micro about their achievements in the last year and what it means to be nominated at SMAs 2023

The Sales and Marketing Awards 2023 are fast approaching and as we prepare find out the winners of at this year's ceremony on Thursday 29 June at Leonardo Royal Hotel, Tower Bridge, we met some of the contenders.

Today we speak to Lee Waller, who is general manager at reseller LA Micro.

Waller has been with LA Micro for 10 years and as general manager, he brings a unique combination of strategic vision, exceptional leadership, and a commitment to excellence.

LA Micro is shortlisted in this year's SMAs for the Best Company to work for - Sub £100m turnover award.

Why do you think awards like the SMAs matter?

I believe awards like this are important for organisations as they give you industry recognition and validate achievements from a trusted source.

I also believe it makes companies more reputable and credible as the recognition from receiving an award serves as a testament to company excellence and innovation.

Awards like CRN also allow companies to showcase exceptional abilities and if you win an award, it gives a competitive advantage and can attract customers, partners, and investors.

They're also a great way to network which is very important in any industry.

What would winning this award mean to your company?

Having an award like this would mean that we've succeeded in creating a company culture that values employee well-being, contentment, and progress.

This award would not only boost our brand image but also boost employee morale and engagement.

When our employees feel valued, they're more likely to stay with us long-term, which helps maintain stability and continuity within the organisation.

Overall, winning this award would mean a lot as it would demonstrate our dedication to a high-quality workplace and employee treatment which would likely increase client loyalty and increase our market position.

What would you say is your company's proudest achievement over the past year?

Our proudest achievement revolves around the internal changes we've made in the past year.

Our company made the strategic decision to move its office and acquired a 20,000 sq. ft office/warehouse.

This expansion was driven by the increased demand for IT hardware solutions, so we needed a larger space to commit to meeting customer needs and accommodate to our expanding operations.

Additionally, our success led to the need for more employees, so our team has grown significantly in the past year despite disruption from the Covid pandemic.

We also have managed to maintain a fun office culture even with all the internal changes that happened.

We were able to take the entire team abroad and have been hosting monthly events/competitions with cash prizes.

What have been the biggest challenges of 2023 so far and how have you overcome them? How have your people helped with that?

Our biggest challenge this year has been our internal communication. In the past, we didn't have a streamlined way to communicate information such as events and business updates to the entire team.

However, since the team has grown this became more important, so we had to think of ways to improve our methods of communication.

We overcame this challenge by introducing an internal newsletter which is sent via email. We also started featuring snippets of the newsletter on tv screens around the building and I'm glad to say both have proven to be very successful and our marketing team have helped massively in executing.

Our other teams are also doing a great job at communicating what they would like to include in the newsletter too.

How do you think the channel has changed over the past year and what changes do you think it still needs to make?

In the past year, there's been a massive acceleration in digital growth, especially since people now work from home, which has fuelled more demand for IT solutions that support remote working along with an increased focus on cybersecurity and shifting towards cloud computing.

I think the changes that still need to happen are emphasising resilient IT infrastructure.

By this I mean having better disaster recovery solutions, backup systems and data protection.

What do you see as the main opportunities for the channel in the coming year? How do you plan to capitalise on those opportunities?

The main opportunity I see is diversification by having cloud-based offerings like hosting services.

This allows us to meet evolving customer needs, enhance customer relationships and leverage the cloud eco-system.