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Channel Digest: Walking the walk

This past year has been, to put it mildly, a mixed bag for diversity and representation in tech, as we saw an exodus of women from tech at the tail end of 2023.

But channel leaders have been busy promoting diversity, mentorship schemes and community outreach and we wanted to highlight those efforts.

Enter Diversity Leaders 2024 – an accolade highlighting individuals at various points in their career, who are striving to make a difference in their companies and communities.

Check out the full list here and read the interviews to see how these trailblazers are working to make the channel a better place to work and what they think remains to be done.

This week we also continued our coverage of GTDC EMEA. Sustainability was high on the agenda at the distribution conference this year and carbon emissions were in focus. While distribution firms share the same end goal – net zero emissions within the next decade – their approaches vary.

Kelsey Rees has the story on Exertis, Westcon, CMS Distribution and Elko Group's path to rapidly cutting down on carbon.

The stream of mergers and acquisitions we've seen so far in 2024 is slowing down to a trickle as we enter the summer months, but there is still some activity. This week it was Advania UK buying out MSP Servium to beef up its services offer.

Advania UK CEO Geoff Kneen sat down with Andrea Gaini to discuss the reasons for the £180m buyout and future integration plans. Read all about it here.

Meanwhile, FluidOne, another Top VARs alumnus, announced that it had secured a refinancing deal with a new backer as its own route to continued growth.

As we close out Q2, are we likely to see a second half that's equally M&A-heavy?

Economic conditions remain challenging and in an environment of constrained growth, the conditions remain favourable. Buyouts tend to offer new routes to market for the larger players and safety in scale for the smaller ones.

But, for the time being it seems that the big players are mostly content to take a pause and plot their next moves under sunnier skies, if the amount of "out of office" emails this week is anything to go by.

If you're reading this with a Mimosa in hand somewhere in southern Europe, enjoy the break.

As always, thank you for reading CRN!