A new report that focuses on European distributors says that distribution in 2018 has substantially broadened its offering with a wide range of services. In the global IT supply business, the theme of specialisation is running strongly, meaning that channels of all types are concentrating their efforts on their level of expertise and the process of getting close to customers. Therefore, because distributors are channel-only, they became the place to turn for such help.
Distribution has been supplying various services for a number of years now, but recently this service provision has exploded. GTDC listed more than 70 examples that ranged from marketing services to finance and from technical configuration to licence management.
“The distribution industry has become instrumental in much more than just delivering technology products to the right places at the right time,” said GTDC CEO Tim Curran. “Shipping product is no longer the mainstay. Today‘s distribution leaders bring much more to the equation through their unique, highly diversified services portfolios.”
A report by IT Europa aimed for the Global Technology Distribution Council (GTDC) examined the changes in the distribution relationship and the supply of IT services. It also mentions several leading distributors that have invested strongly in services, including Eastern Europe’s AB, Arrow ECS, Ingram Micro, Tech Data, and Westcon.
“We have been reporting on the drive for specialisation among resellers, solution providers and integrators; this focus means they have to rely even more on third party support and the distributor is the logical place to turn for such services. We expect their services portfolios to grow still further in 2018, with financing, cloud, security and marketing support becoming more widely used,” said John Garratt, IT Europa’s Editor.
IT Europa is the leading provider of strategic business intelligence, news, and analysis on the European IT marketplace and the primary channels that serve it. The company markets a range of database reports and organises European conferences and events for the IT and Telecoms sectors.
