Logistics
that support them” – in order to maintain this advantage, intelligent recruitment drives and the narrowing of Africa’s skills gap are going to be essential.
a provider of products, but also as an extension of their teams and a provider of key enabling services”, Conradie says.
Adding value
The future for Westcon looks bright, as it continues to redefine how distribution companies operate and ride new trends with intelligent ways of adapting. Other companies could benefit from Westcon and Conradie’s attitude to an ever-changing, fickle and complex industry. The likelihood of Westcon’s continuing success can be felt through some of the awards it has recently received. Based on the highest corresponding year-
Westcon’s idea for a successful distribution company is that it’s not enough to simply be an excellent middleman between suppliers and resellers. “The future of distribution in the IT channel”, Conradie explains, “is in the value you can offer”. This means offering something to your customers that others can’t match. “Our goal as WestconGroup has always been to break the mould on traditional distribution, which is widely viewed as a box dropping customs clearing house, by adding value-added services layers to each of our offerings.”
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An important aspect to the way Westcon do things differently comes in the technical support it offers its partners. Conradie identifi es the biggest success of the past year as “the establishment of our services business and training academy”. Westcon don’t just pass products on to their customers, the company is there for them throughout the design to the deployment and subsequent support process and have the infrastructure to step in and help when necessary. “Our customers are starting to turn to us, not only as
The future for Westcon
over-year growth percentage, WestconGroup Southern Africa were again awarded the Microsoft Services Licensing Agreements (SPLA) distributor of the year for the Middle East and Africa region. This is in addition to a 2014 Motorola Solutions distributor of the year award, as well as an SAPOA best industrial development award for their new offices and warehouse building at Waterfall Industrial Park in Johannesburg. With so much already in place and the right attitude to change and growth WestconGroup Southern Africa look to continue to change the face of distribution for some time to come.
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