The IT distribution needs new customers

New customers are important to business. Also for the distributors. But what if the number of classic addressable customers back, never to return? Then it's like to look for new customers. In the case of distributors this can only end customer no. A thesis post by Damian Sicking.

For many years there have been in the IT industry is an all in all well-functioning process, the product comes to the end customer. The manufacturers sent their products to distributors, from here they were distributed to retailers and system houses that eventually the end customer expressed in the hands or installed at your site. This supply chain worked - despite occasional disturbances - on the whole good, and when it comes to the producers and distributors, this could also be many more years remain so.

The situation is different if one looks at the distributors. You cannot go on as before, and not just because of the declining equipment sales and still not really answered question of which meaningful role can play the distribution of cloud computing topic, but especially at a different, far more threatening development.

The distribution is now arrived at a point where it is forced to change their business model, or shall we say better: to expand. The main reason for this is that they an important component of their previous business model breaks away: their customers! The number of classical distribution customers - IT distributors and system vendors - has been declining for years, and there is no reason to assume that this trend will reverse in the coming years. For distributors, this is a threatening scenario. To date, some distributors have this loss of customers still can compensate for the fact that you entice away resellers and system vendors from the competition and piloted in their own barn. Classic displacement so. But in the long run this may be for a growth-oriented company no solution to the dilemma and no strategy.


In other words: If all of the addressable customer returns, then the entrepreneur or manager needs to consider on the distributors-executive chair who else might have need of his services for the traditional customer beyond which entirely new customer or which completely new customers can gain for his business. This necessity has indeed actually recognized many years ago the distribution. There was quite into it attempts to expand the market base into new segments, for example, in the field of consumer electronics trade. The success of these efforts, however, was manageable.

To ensure their own continued existence at all about growth, the distribution company must do more radical today. They will only have a good future if they have a rule that was in the previous cooperation with producers and distributors, jettison - namely the rule that the end customers are taboo for the distributors. This rule was justified as long as there were plenty of IT resellers and system vendors who shopped in the distribution. Those days are gone. Distributors can use it for survival reasons simply not afford to leave the business with end other customers. IT resellers and system vendors will understand, accept and live with it (must) that their distribution partners will continue to be their opponent in the future.