The Silent Majority

The four-employee Hanson, Mass.-based business is a loyal Intel shop that backs up its systems with local hands-on service that is simply not available from brand-name desktop and server vendors. As CRN Distribution Editor Scott Campbell points out in our top news story this week, Tom and Patrick are in fact seeing double-digit sales growth this year, despite a technology spending slowdown that has wreaked havoc on those vendors that play mainly in the Fortune 1000 market.

Solution providers like the CPU Guys are part of what I call the silent majority in the technology solutions business. They are small-business-focused solution providers that more often than not are overlooked by vendors. Why are they ignored rather than courted? Because vendors are too busy chasing high-volume players that all too frequently dump products into the gray market to earn their volume discounts and then leave it to shops like the CPU Guys to service the products. What these vendors fail to realize is that the CPU Guys and similar shops comprise the largest part of the technology solutions business.

One distributor that is sharply focused on these small, growing solution providers is D&H Distributing, which says it logged an 18 percent increase in sales during the first half of 2002. D&H's close attention to this silent majority is paying off big time. The CPU Guys are big fans of D&H, and they're not alone, if the 750 attendees at a D&H road show last week in Randolph, Mass., are any indication.

One big reason D&H gets high fives is because the distributor provides valuable field sales support that is often missing from other companies. The CPU Guys tell a great story about D&H Senior Northeast Manager Doreen Affsa solving problems in the field at 8:30 p.m. on a Friday. That kind of in-the-trenches commitment is what wins business, and it reinforces my belief that D&H and the CPU Guys will continue to grow.

The bottom line: Vendors and distributors that ignore this silent majority are going to find themselves in the hole,a hole from which they may never be able to climb out.

Which vendors are doing a good job serving the silent majority? Let me know at (781) 839-1221 or via e-mail at [email protected].