Itec North buys 50% of Itec North East

Itec North has acquired 50% of Itec North East in a transaction motivated by the wish to improve service efficiencies and sales capabilities the area.

The Itec North East office remains independent and fully operational, with Itec Holdings retaining its 50% shareholding in the business.

“Itec North has seen both organic and acquisitive growth in the past two years, it therefore made sense for us to team up with Itec North East when such an attractive opportunity presented itself,” says Gavin Meyer, managing director of Itec North. “The move enables us to share resources from a group perspective and brings down operational costs, which means that we can pool technical skills and basic infrastructure for the benefit of our customer base.”

Ryan Miles, chief operating officer of Itec Distribution, says the biggest benefit of the move for the Itec group is that it provides an opportunity to move into the shared services arena. “Shared services enables huge cost-efficiencies and allows additional skills investment,” Miles says. “In addition, the shared services model makes it far simpler to roll out new technology. This type of deal gives Itec a chance to implement a similar shared services model to that used in most developed markets and to realise all the associated benefits for our partners and clients.”

Miles adds that with over 40 branches around the country, each with their own services centre and call centre agents, the shared services methodology has national scalability. “Itec North East will now be able to focus solely on fulfilling customer needs, as all back-office functions will be taken care of by the shared services team.”

From the customer perspective, the biggest benefit will be speed and quality of delivery, given that Itec North recently won the group's best service dealership award.

“All service and technical skills will be available in-house,” says Meyer. “That means all our customers can expect even quicker responses to their calls. Itec North East customers will also benefit from our mobile solution, which enables queries and faults to be addressed remotely.”

Itec North recently beat 81 colour dealers to win the Konica Minolta Business Technologies International Colour Champions League 2008/9 award for the Asia, Africa and Central and South America region.