Ingram Micro Streamlines Vendor Organizations

The Santa Ana, Calif.-based distributor will combine its North American vendor management and sales teams, and the group will report to Brian Wiser, senior vice president. Its operations and purchasing units will be merged into one group led by Terry Tysseland, senior vice president, and Ingram Micro North America CFO Ross Crane will head a new in-house consulting group, dubbed the Strategic Initiatives Execution team.

Keith Bradley, president of Ingram Micro North America, said the changes reflect the company's strategic plan for organic growth. Ingram Micro plans to hire five directors to work with the strategic initiatives team, and that group will vet business ideas coming from within the company, such as last year's decision to offer managed services, he said.

The reorganization will create new business units focused on single vendors, which should benefit VARs, Bradley said. For example, Ingram Micro is creating an IBM business unit so that instead of having to work with hardware and software groups to create a solution, customers have one point of contact, he said.

The combination of sales and vendor management will help the group act more cohesively, Bradley added. "There hasn't really been one person on either side empowered to make decisions," said Bradley. "They've all been responsible for a piece of their business working with the sales group, but now under Brian's common leadership, my belief is they'll be able to act more like a separate business unit, even though they're not constructed that way."

Consolidation of the groups also will help from an operations standpoint, allowing formerly separate divisions to make decisions on things like IT infrastructure together, which will cut costs, he said.