D&H Invests $23M To Extend Credit Lines For Its Reseller Partners

D&H Distributing is extending nearly $23 million in additional credit for nearly 850 of its reseller partners, about 8 percent of its reseller partner roster, hoping to spur continued growth for its channel as the increasing range of services being offered by solution providers leads to an increase in product sales.

’What we are focusing on is helping partners [who are] moving up the market – which generally helps them compete with larger resellers and certainly sell more,’ said Peter DiMarco, vice president of VAR sales at D&H Distributing.

The Harrisburg, Pa.-based distributor is proactively moving to accommodate the growth of its partners, he said, noting that this step was inspired, in part, by some of D&H’s partner community.

[Related: D&H VAR Roundtable: Ransomware Is The largest Threat In The SMB Market]

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Credit lines for the nearly 850 VAR and managed service provider (MSP) partners will be expanded between $2,500 and $100,000, D&H said, with the average increase about $25,000. D&H said the extended credit is being offered to solution providers working in the SMB space – who account for the majority of D&H’s partner base.

’This is welcome news to me, it makes my life much easier,’ said Jon Allen, owner of Ogden, Utah-based Proponent IT, a D&H partner.

Over the last few years, Allen said his business has shifted its focus from reselling IT products to the healthcare industry to becoming a HIPAA compliance expert for clients in the medical industry.

The shift to becoming a specialist, Allen said, has helped Proponent IT grow significantly, more than 20 percent in 2015 and possible another 70 to 80 percent this year.
Because of that growth, he said, Proponent IT is relying on D&H more than ever. While his company’s rapid growth is a welcome development, he said there are more complications around purchasing than when his company was smaller.

’My purchasing has gone quite a bit higher,’ he said, noting that Proponent IT is buying more Lenovo, Microsoft and Cisco products and the larger orders have been, at times, bigger than his credit line – an issue that has sometimes hindered Allen’s business.

More than once, he said, his credit line forced him to spread out his purchases across different distributors. Or, when he wanted to leverage his relationship with D&H, his only option was to place several orders over a period of time, paying off his credit line every week.

Allen said he has now been offered a longer line of credit with D&H, which takes much of that worry off his shoulders.

’Now, we can spend less time doing those sorts of administrative things, and spend more time on billable projects,’ he said.

Companies like Proponent IT, DiMarco said, are what inspired D&H to extend its clients’ lines of credit, noting that the money is being directed towards resellers that have started to get bigger ’and want to become even larger.’

D&H is seeing this type of growth as more resellers expand their service offerings, DiMarco said, and as resellers are refreshing their clients’ IT infrastructure and buying a larger amount of security and wireless products.

The education vertical is also seeing double-digit growth in Chromebook purchases with the increasing popularity of connected classrooms, according to DiMarco.

DiMarco said D&H is continuing to build on its strategy of supporting its partners with new offerings that help them grow and take advantage of service opportunities.

D&H has been adding programs to educate and enable its reseller community, he said, and this most recent program is the latest move towards that goal.

’It is no different in any industry. As small providers become bigger, how they finance the business is a critical part of the process,’ he said. ’So we are working to get feedback from our resellers, and it is helping us put some preemptive actions in place in anticipation of growth.’