Tech Data Shuffles Units To Improve VAR Support

Tech Data announced today that it has launched its Printing Solutions specialized business unit (SBU) and has realigned several of its other business units by technology to streamline the organization.

"We always look at them every year and try to tweak them to make sure we're in the right arenas and to look at how things are evolving. We looked at the SBUs and found a few were more successful than the others," said Ken Lamneck, president of the Americas, Tech Data.

Units attached to product groups that had similar technologies and compatible products tended to be more successful. "We had to look at where we've had success and then determine the cause for that success," he said.

The new printing SBU started operations at the beginning of the month, and combines the Clearwater, Fla.-based distributor's sales, marketing and technical support capabilities in the printer and consumables market. The unit will focus on helping resellers up their attach rates for printers and other add-ons, and will be part of the company's peripherals division. The Pro A/V and Document Imaging SBUs are also part of the peripherals division.

The AIDC/RFID and Physical Security groups have been moved to Tech Data's Networking Division with the Telephony SBU. The Components SBU and the AppleAdvantage SBU make up the Client Systems Division.

"I think [reorganizing the business units] gives our resellers better support because it brings them better alignment within the product groups and that's what we're really trying to achieve," said Lamneck.