Beta Distribution has enjoyed consistent sales revenue growth over the last eight years. The firm is on track to hit the £200 million mark this financial year and is reshaping its pre- and post-sales structure to support its channel technology, enterprise and storage proposition.
“The new structure is designed to make us a more attractive partner to new vendors and new resellers,” said Marketing Director Nigel Morris. “In essence, what we’re doing is reshaping and right-sizing to provide our customers with a combination of dedicated account managers with specific areas of product expertise.”
The VAR team created in January of this year will be expanded with new recruits taking up positions within the pre-sales function and as account managers. This team will support any reseller through all stages of the sales process, including pre-sales configuration and architectural support, with the resellers themselves and their end user customers.
Beta has created two new sales teams – Major Accounts and Premier – who will work with a number of customers across the entire product range. Both include dedicated enterprise and technology specialists. “Bringing enterprise and technology opportunities to this customer base will be a big part of their role,” said Morris. Underpinning the entire sales operation is a Technology Solutions Business Development team, which has also increased in size.
Morris said that in the past 18 months headcount in Beta overall has increased from 60 to 100, with ten new positions created since June.
“In the past six months, we’ve secured three new distribution agreements with Falconstor, Overland/Tandberg and Exablox, and earlier this year Samsung appointed Beta as a 1st tier distributor for their print products. We’ve been successful in attracting new vendors based on the wide and varied nature of our customer base and our ability to provide them with new customers,” he said.
“In the same vein, having the distribution rights to new brands makes us an appealing partner to more resellers. So we’re scaling up to ensure we’ve got the right infrastructure in place to manage that new business and, most importantly, to provide consistently high levels of service to all our partners”
Trade-only
Beta maintains a strictly ‘trade-only’ business model, which it regards as a cornerstone of its success. “This generates a level of trust with our resellers, evidenced by the fact that three-quarters of the deliveries we make are direct to end users on behalf of resellers,” explained Morris.
In addition, the disti has broadened its product portfolio in response to a changing market. Morris singles storage as one area of real opportunity for dealers in which Beta is well placed to help.
“Google CEO Eric Schmidt said we create as much information in two days now as we did from the dawn of man through to 2003,” said Morris. “Where do you store that information is a question dealers should be asking their customers. We firmly believe that for resellers looking to secure a new revenue stream, storage products are where they should be focussing.”
He added: “The last three years have seen a significant shift in our product shares. Storage-based products have grown from 9% to 30%, while the consumables product range has reduced from 70% to just over 50%, although consumables revenues have still increased.”
Morris said that unlike MPS, where dealers may have an in-house capability and therefore be less reliant on their distributor, with storage you really do need a disti on-board to help win the business. “That’s where our VAR team comes in. Typically the sales cycle can be long and in some cases complicated, but once you’ve landed one deal, the rest will follow,” he said.
A large proportion of Beta’s growth – turnover for FY15/16 is projected to grow by £40 million to £200 million – has come from the new technology and enterprise products it offers. Further growth is expected to come from its new sales approach.
“If we stick with what we’re currently doing, we will see 10-15% growth year-on-year. But we expect it will be much higher than that. We have opened up our fist European operation in Holland, supported by a fully stocked warehouse, and anticipated revenues in the fist full year of trading are €30m from a standing start,” said Morris.
He added: “Bringing on new vendors and expanding into other technology areas means that we have resellers and VARs doing business with us now that wouldn’t have done so 12 months ago. Our new sales structure will not only re-affirm to existing vendors and customers that we are serious about becoming a major player in this space, but will also make those who have yet to experience Beta take another look at what we can do for their business.”
www.betadistribution.com
