The ICT market and its official channel will always make room for the distributor and there is definitely opportunity for a player with the right kind of offering. So claims Bill Gradwell, General Manager of ANNEX, who disagrees with the notion that distribution is an ailing business arena and believes it will always have a role to play.
The market, he says, needs the benefit of an official channel partner that will adequately handle stock volumes, sufficiently manage the risks and worry about the benefit programmes, credit facilities and the like.
According to Gradwell, "distribution-type" companies in SA arose out of a lack of direct representation from leading international vendors during the sanction years. The recent emergence of these vendors on the market landscape has left decision-makers within local distribution companies feeling a little uneasy.
"What is happening now is that many of these major vendors are investing presence in SA. Although, to a certain extent, some may perceive this as a threat to business, we believe resellers and vendors definitely still see a role for the distributor. Many resellers struggle with the vendor programmes and the vendors are reluctant or unable to handle the large diversified and demanding customer base in the IT industry in SA," explains Gradwell.
The ANNEX business objective is to `annex` available South African market share within the distribution space. To this end, Gradwell is focused on taking to market a product range that includes Intel, Fujitsu Siemens Computers, Matrox, AMD, Creative Labs, Eizo and other leading brands.
"There are a lot of entrepreneurs who would like to take a product, brand it and sell it, but they are blown out of the water by the large distributor or vendor who competes with them at the customer base. ANNEX is definitely not in this space - we want to sell `building blocks and solutions` to the dealers, the integrators, the solution providers, the value-added resellers who will add intellectual property to the product thereby helping them take this product to market," explains Gradwell.
"There are a tremendous amount of smaller businesses that have established themselves and latch onto a niche market or customer. They don`t have time to worry about rebate programmes, to do imports, or worry about overseas credit. The distributor is there to take that worry from them, not to make huge margins and force them into submission against the finished product coming into the country. So, a key place for the distributor is to consolidate the requirements of these guys into one big container and bring this in and give them the benefit of a better buy-price and overhead costs. They can then take the product and sell it into their niche markets, maybe even exports," he adds.
The other necessity behind distribution is training, suggests Gradwell.
"There is a huge amount of product that comes through every single day. Our role is to analyse this information overload and see what fits the market and then distribute this information. We will distribute white papers to people who want the right information ahead of time. Training is vital and our purpose is also to ensure that vendors toe the line. Actually, distributors are the unsung heroes because they take a huge risk locally. Our model is based on solution delivery and there is a customer base out there that demands this turnaround time and service," concludes Gradwell.
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