Andrew Harris, chief sales and marketing officer, DCC Technologies.
I have been sitting with a question for a while now, and I suspect I am not the only one in this industry who is. What does distribution actually look like in five years? Not what we hope it looks like, but what it is already becoming.
The honest answer, from where I stand, is that the line between distributor and reseller is blurring. Not disappearing entirely, but shifting in ways that are already visible if you pay attention to what the larger players in this market are doing. Vendor consolidation is reshaping supply chains. Distributors are moving deeper into enablement, infrastructure and services. And the traditional model of moving boxes from vendor to reseller to end-user, while still very much alive, is no longer enough to build a sustainable business around.
This is not a criticism of the channel as it exists today. It is an observation about the direction of travel. The South African ICT market is valued at USD 39.72 billion in 2025 and projected to reach USD 58.09 billion by 2030.(1) That kind of growth does not come from doing the same things the same way.
As vendors rationalise their partner networks and concentrate enablement resources towards fewer strategic distributors, those distributors are being asked to do more. Not just hold stock and process orders, but train resellers, run go-to-market programmes and help partners build practices around specific technologies. That is not logistics.
In some ways, what is emerging is a kind of super-reseller. Not a reseller competing with partners, but a distributor that understands the technologies, builds the practices and supports the go-to-market motion that partners need to succeed. That is enablement. And a reseller who once chose a distributor based on price and availability is increasingly choosing based on what the distributor makes possible. Platforms and ecosystems are becoming more important than individual products, and the questions driving loyalty now push distributors well beyond their traditional role.
The way I have always seen it, distribution exists to deliver technology to the end-user. That has not changed. What has changed is everything that surrounds that function, the infrastructure, support and platforms, the depth of engagement required to make it happen well.
None of this means distribution is about to compete with resellers. I want to be clear on that. The channel depends on the reseller relationship and that is not something any serious distributor should be looking to undermine. But the next-generation distributor will need to think and act more like a partner in their resellers' growth and less like a warehouse with a credit line. The distinction matters.
What gives me optimism is that South African distributors have navigated significant shifts before. Currency volatility, supply chain disruption, the move to cloud, each forced adaptation, and the channel found a way. The current shift is structural rather than cyclical, which makes it harder. But the fundamentals are the same: understand where the market is heading, invest ahead of it and make it easier for your partners to grow.
I do not know exactly what distribution will look like in five years. But I am fairly confident it will look less like a supply chain and more like a platform. Less like a middleman and more like an ecosystem. And, in some ways, a lot like a very capable reseller.
Sources:
(1) Mordor Intelligence, 'South Africa ICT Market Size, Report, Share and Growth Trends 2025-2030', https://www.mordorintelligence.com/industry-reports/south-africa-ict-market
