Customer support Tech Data

CUSTOMER SUPPORT

Tech Data BV is the Dutch arm of Tech Data Corporation, one of the world’s largest distributors of computer hardware and software. Joseph Altham interviewed Olaf Ouwens, the sales director of Tech Data BV, to find out about a business in which relationships are the number-one priority.

Based in the USA, and with its European headquarters in Munich, Tech Data is a powerful multinational organisation. The corporation operates as a wholesale IT distributor, sourcing computers and software from leading companies like Samsung, Sony and Microsoft, and selling them on to retail outlets and other resellers.

Tech Data is not a manufacturing company, nor does it sell directly to the end user. However, IT distribution involves a lot more than simply taking cardboard boxes out of a warehouse and loading them onto a truck. Rather than following the ‘pick, pack and ship’ approach, Tech Data positions itself as a strategic partner to the resellers, offering them technical advice and assistance with marketing. As well as trading in laptop PCs and other familiar items, Tech Data supplies complex solutions such as data centre and storage technologies through its collection of specialist subsidiary companies. In the Netherlands, Tech Data has its sales office in Utrecht, where it has part of the corporation’s business unit for the Benelux countries.

Logistics

Olaf Ouwens acknowledges that Tech Data follows an indirect selling model and only supplies equipment to other businesses. However, he does not like to categorise Tech Data as a business-to-business company. “I don’t want to see things in terms of b2b and b2c. What matters is that we’re a people relations business – one human being to another. We’re all about building relationships with our clients for the long term, which demands honesty and professionalism. We talk to the retailers all the time. We want to support them and help them to be more successful.”

For Tech Data to be able to provide this level of service, prompt and reliable delivery is essential. Tech Data has nine logistics centres throughout Europe that ship more than 21 million units every year. “Logistics is very important. The market is tough, and hiccups cost money, so it’s vital to have a well-run system of distribution. We normally work on the basis of order today, deliver tomorrow.”

Acquisitions

Tech Data has expanded its presence in the Netherlands by making three recent acquisitions. In the autumn of 2010, it acquired the Dutch company Triade Holding BV. Triade is a collection of distribution companies dealing in both IT products and consumer electronics. Besides the Benelux countries, Triade is also present in Norway and Denmark. In the Netherlands, Triade’s companies include Battrex, a distributor in Delft which supplies accessories like batteries and memory cards, Quote Components, a distributor of business-related IT products, and HON, a distributor of white goods and other domestic appliances. The third major acquisition was of MCC, the largest telecom distibutor in the Benelux countries.

Olaf Ouwens believes that consumer electronics distribution goes well with distributing IT products. “The dividing line between consumer electronics and IT is becoming blurred. Think of the iPad.”

MMD

“Tech Data is since years a brilliant partner for distribution in The Netherlands. The recent acquisition of Quote Components amplifies our partnership in supplying the B2B as well the B2C market for PHILIPS monitors in the Dutch market. Tech Data proofs that you have to develop continuously in order to be successful in this changing market. Innovation is a goal we set for ourselves at MMD. By developing new PHILIPS monitors which are useful and meaningful for daily use at the office or at home. (picture) Quality, (power) efficiency and innovation is key to do the job!”

Roy van Weert – Sales Manager MMD – The Netherlands

In January 2012, Tech Data announced the completion of another significant deal, with the acquisition of the Belgian company ProDesk. In the Benelux countries, ProDesk is the official distributor for Autodesk’s CAD (computer-aided design) software. The acquisition of ProDesk is intended to strengthen the capabilities in the Benelux countries of TD Datech, Tech Data’s design software division, allowing Tech Data to improve its Autodesk offering as well as to draw on the ProDesk team’s extensive knowledge of the local market. “Acquiring ProDesk is a boost for our collection of specialist companies. We specialise in every segment and our aim is to be a one-stop shop for our customers.” Innovations

Olaf Ouwens expects that soon consumers will no longer be buying their software on CD-ROM. “Within a couple of years, all software will probably be digital. Boxed software will be eliminated and instead all software will be downloaded.”

Tech Data is helping retailers prepare for this change and has developed an electronic software distribution tool. Using a web portal, this initiative allows consumers to buy software from a retail outlet as a download rather than in boxed form. Once they have paid for the download in the shop, the consumer will receive an email with an activation key, enabling them to log on to a website and download the new software. Retailers still obtain the software from Tech Data before selling it on to the consumer, but with no need to keep boxes of software in stock, they save on storage space. Another advantage for retailers is that they can offer a wider choice of software and make it instantly available to their customers.

“We are always looking to the future and electronic software is hot right now. But nobody can be sure how the IT industry as a whole is going to develop in the years ahead, because it is moving so fast. Ten years ago everyone was getting excited about the mobile cell phone, which we don’t think of now as particularly advanced. Whatever innovations we can expect, they are likely to be big. The sky’s the limit!” n