James Napp

Managing director, Bechtle Direct

Career so far I have been a salesperson at Bechtle, sales director at Bechtle, managing director at Bechtle and international business leader for Bechtle Europe.

If you could be anyone else for a week, who would you be? Boris Johnson. He’s got loads of hair and seems to be able to spout eloquent drivel and get away with it!

What will next year’s most overhyped industry buzzword be? BYOD. It will be interesting to see what happens when employees break their own devices doing company work and want the company to replace them. It may well turn a full circle…

Has 2012 been a good, bad or ugly year? It has been great! Forty per cent growth, terrific new offices and we have proven that if you have the right team, pretty much anything is possible.

What would you have as your last meal? If I was on death row, it would be porridge from the magic porridge pot. If it was due to old age and I could still chew, it would be ribeye steak and chips (with peas).

What keeps you awake at night? Mostly my three- and one-year-old girls. If it’s not them, I normally just crash from being up the previous night.

What piece of technology could you not be without? Email. It’s incredibly useful, although at the same time, a creative and proactive thought killer.

Have any of your predictions come true this year? Yes. Plymouth Argyle are as poor as they were last year!

What is the best partner/customer trip you have ever been on? The old-school HP Jetsetters trips to Marrakech, Palma and Tremblant organised by Graham Long – amazing!

What do you see as the channel’s biggest challenge in 2013? Adapting from selling boxes to more of a utility computing model and getting salespeople to adapt to selling a different way.