CompuCom Holds the Course

Despite the turbulence of an unsteady marketplace and harsh economic conditions that led to the demise of two of its biggest competitors last year, reseller-turned-digital infrastructure provider CompuCom Systems had what its CEO considers a strong year.

Though the company's revenue for 2000 decreased 8 percent to $2.71 billion, it reported earnings of $7.8 million, highlighted by strong growth in its services business. Considering the difficulties other traditional resellers like Inacom and MicroAge Technology Services had trying to compete in a services-oriented environment, the company's ability to show a profit for its 14th consecutive year is impressive.

"In this climate, we think that is a real important thing for our ongoing success," says J. Edward Coleman, CompuCom CEO. "It shows we are real."

Coleman says the two keys to CompuCom's success last year were a return to fundamental business processes and a mission to turn obstacles into opportunities. For instance, while many traditional resellers were troubled by manufacturers' attempts to go direct last year, CompuCom quickly moved to take advantage

of the opportunity created by vendors' needs for better fulfillment strategies. "We really embraced it and sold ourselves hard to the manufacturers as having the ability to help them implement their direct fulfillment strategies," Coleman says.

Another potential threat that was turned into opportunity was the adoption of mobile and wireless solutions in the enterprise. "Instead of looking at wireless devices like PDAs and Blackberries as a threat to the PC business, we viewed it as an opportunity to provide a new set of services to meet our [customers'] requirements," Coleman says.

Looking forward, Coleman sees three things CompuCom needs to do to stay competitive as a solution provider: efficiently leverage existing capabilities, improve service delivery quality, and hold onto good people by offering competitive benefits and training programs.

"For a lot of different reasons," Coleman says, "last year we think we lost way too many good people. The first half of last year everybody wanted to join a dot com. We think we need to do a better job of attracting and retaining top-rate talent."