Tarsus celebrated its birthday this month. MD Guy Whitcroft says his company`s focus on gaining the skills and knowledge necessary in the products it distributes has facilitated two decades of existence in a tough market.
Maintaining a few key vendor partners - HP, IBM, Acer, Samsung, OKI, TallyGenicom, APC and Targus - allows the distributor a stronger product focus, which, says Whitcroft, has helped the company stay ahead of a lot of its competitors.
The changing face of IT
Whitcroft, who has been in the industry for over 32 years, 13 of which at Tarsus, has seen data processing evolve into information technology. Computing, once available to big business only, has entered the domain of everyday people, he says. "The fact that people have access to so much information and data is noteworthy. Furthermore, we have witnessed huge advances in the quality of digital media, PCs and e-mail."
The pervasiveness of mobile technologies has blurred the line between work and leisure time. Managers can even run their businesses remotely. The market has come a long way from the days when companies had large mainframe architectures and computers that could only run one basic program at a time, says Whitcroft, and the result is more sophisticated consumers with more stringent demands.
Aligning with change
"This is why it is necessary to be very knowledgeable about our products," he says, "but a further criterion to success is the ability to manage costs."
A major challenge in the channel remains maintaining profitability in the face of continuously shrinking margins - and having the experience to walk away from ineffective partnerships.
Whitcroft notes: "Even though Tarsus is a big business, we choose to run it as if it was a small company, with a flat management structure coupled with very close and personal interaction with clients." This allows the company to respond quickly to industry changes and client requirements. Nonetheless, the company uses the performance and standards of leading international channel players as its benchmark.
The local arena
"There still remains a shortage of good technical and business skills in the local market. Another concern is the availability of credit: funds must be made more accessible for start-up businesses in the country," he explains. "It is encouraging to note, however, that box-dropping is dying off as customers are demanding total solutions."
On the matter of locally versus internationally branded products: there is plenty of space in the market for both, he says, yet most components are imported, resulting in products becoming mere commodities anyway. "Furthermore, the grey market has been around for a long time and I don`t think it is going anywhere in the near future."
As for the future, Whitcroft predicts more major vendor mergers on the cards, but that these will not necessarily have a negative impact on the local or global market.
Share
