Tech Data changes its European organisation
2012-02-06
Tech Data Europe has unveiled changes to its European organisation which will enable it to optimise its efficiency whilst enhancing the support for its country operations. As a result of its acquisition strategy in Europe and the diversification of its distribution business, a new European Executive Board (EEB) has been formed to represent the company's technology areas and country and business operations. The EEB will drive the strategic direction of the company's European operations and ensure it takes advantage of the growth opportunities that exist in both its traditional IT business, its specialist divisions and its services. In addition, to provide greater focus and consistency in execution, the European country operations have been divided between two Regional Senior Vice Presidents. One will be led by Andy Gass who will be responsible for the following country operations: Belgium & Luxembourg, France, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain and the United Kingdom. The other will be led by Jonas Elmgren who will have responsibility for Austria, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Hungary, Norway, Poland, Slovakia, Sweden and Switzerland. Both Regional Senior Vice Presidents will report into Néstor Cano, President, Europe. "The formation of an EEB and two regional operations will enable the company to be even more efficient and agile in its decision making at a strategic level, while allowing us to benefit from the strength and experience of country managers in their own markets," said Néstor Cano, President, Europe. "These changes are consistent with our major business goals and provide our country operations with the opportunity to take full advantage of the technology areas in which we operate, utilising our existing pan-European infrastructure and resources, whilst they focus on excellence in execution in sales and marketing to develop and grow our business."
The EEB members are:
Néstor Cano, President, Europe
Alain Amsellem, Senior Vice President, Finance & Business Operations
Nimesh Davé, Senior Vice President Broadline & Processes
Rod Millar, President Brightstar Tech Data (Mobility)
Simon England, Senior Vice President, Value Added Business, responsible for Azlan (Enterprise), Datech (Design Software) and Maverick (Professional Audio Visual)
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Tech Data leaves Brasil
2011-12-19
Broadliner Tech Data has decided to close its Brasilian subsidiary. The closure is due to Brazil’s complex tax, legal and regulatory environments, which make it difficult for the distributor to generate a sufficient return on invested capital. The American broadliner will continue to do business with Brazilian resellers, but will handle those transactions as export business, through its Miami-based facilities. The closure will cost Tech Data between €15m and €18m in fourth quarter operating income, between €5.5m and €7m in foreign currency exchange losses and between €5.5m and €7m in taxes, after tax-deferred assets in Brazil are written off. Those numbers could push the company’s combined net losses on the closure up to €32m for the quarter.
Distributors lose industry share in 2011
2011-08-31
According to the last Canalys report, the growth of the distributors does not match those of the rest of the industry. The Canalys IT Industry major vendor (Apple, Cisco, Dell, EMC, Google, HP, IBM, Intel, Lexmark, Oracle, Microsoft and SAP) grew revenue 18% worldwide on average in the first quarter of 2011. In comparison, the big four distributors (Arrow ECS, Avnet TS, Ingram Micro and Tech Data) managed 11%, with many smaller distributors faring worse than this. Distributors have blamed recent disappointing results on excess inventory, poor retail demand, sluggish sell-out and weakening economies. They have comforted themselves by making peer group comparisons where sales-out data shows "we are performing as well as the others, so please blame the market for our results, not us!" And while these reasons are valid justifications, Canalys argues that distributors need to see the bigger picture and realize that for the first time in a decade industry trends are conspiring against them.
According to the report, distribution thrived for the last 10 years thanks to rapid notebook and netbook adoption and the virtualization of the server room, with two-tier distribution at the heart of the routes-to-market for both B2B and B2C vendors. But the growth drivers of the industry have now changed. Mobility is still booming, but now on the back of smaller devices, notably smart phones and pads, which are more and more sold either directly or through service providers. The server and storage markets are healthy, driven by data center activity and cloud applications. On top of these industry changes, the world economic growth is mainly coming from economies beyond Western Europe and the US, where the top 4 distributors are at best weak, at worse absent (MEA, Russia, Japan, etc.) : in these countries, local distributors will outgrow them, with already some local giants like Merlion in Russia for example. All of these factors combined are set to cause headaches for distributor executives for at least the next two years. The report concludes with a list of recommandations for the distributors to follow, if they wish their growth to match the industry, one of which is to go East as soon as possible…
Inteli attacks European market
2010-03-26 Cebit 2010/Czech Republic : Czech distributor Inteli has unveiled ITdistri its pan-European distribution strategy. The company is specialized in lamp and projector distribution, with more than 40 vendors. Beside its B2B website, Inteli has opened a B2C e-commerce website named avlamps.eu. This site targets end users, which account for one third of current Inteli activity. The company indeed mainly works with a reseller network which it is expanding to whole Europe. In order to differentiate itself from its competitors, Inteli has unveiled a very pushing after-sale service : lamps are replaced if defective within three years from purchase. Warranty can be extended to five years for projectors, the first three years covering even projector's cleaning. No doubt that Inteli arrival may very well make difficult the life of its two main British competitors, Hotlamps (Tech Data's business unit) and Justlamps.
Inteli attacks European market
2010-03-26 Cebit 2010/Czech Republic : Czech distributor Inteli has unveiled ITdistri its pan-European distribution strategy. The company is specialized in lamp and projector distribution, with more than 40 vendors. Beside its B2B website, Inteli has opened a B2C e-commerce website named avlamps.eu. This site targets end users, which account for one third of current Inteli activity. The company indeed mainly works with a reseller network which it is expanding to whole Europe. In order to differentiate itself from its competitors, Inteli has unveiled a very pushing after-sale service : lamps are replaced if defective within three years from purchase. Warranty can be extended to five years for projectors, the first three years covering even projector's cleaning. No doubt that Inteli arrival may very well make difficult the life of its two main British competitors, Hotlamps (Tech Data's business unit) and Justlamps.
