Tech Data Sharpens Its Go-To-Market Strategy

Unveiled last week at the company's annual Vendor Summit in Tampa, Fla., the reorganization creates six SBUs that function more like complete companies with their own sales and marketing capabilities. Each of those groups will then be the conduit through which Tech Data will market more than 11 different types of overall programs on behalf of vendors.

The six SBUs will be Components, Document Imaging, Digital Environments, Point Of Sale/Data Capture, Supplies and Telephony. These groups were selected because they are growth areas the company needs to focus on more, said Elio Levy, senior vice president of U.S. sales at the distributor.

As part of those SBUs, Tech Data will have dedicated programs focused on technology areas such as mobile, licensing, storage and security, color imaging, printers, presentation solutions, networking and market segments such as Latin America, government and vertical markets.

The Clearwater, Fla.-based company's Tech Select program for creating alliances among its customers also will be one of these programs. The SBUs that will be demoted to program status are Mobile, Licensing and Enterprise.

In addition, Tech Select on Nov. 1 plans to launch an Emerging Vendor Opportunity program that will have a dedicated manager, Levy said. That program initially will include 32 small vendors that Tech Data feels have significant promise but have not been able to get the level of attention they require to grow.

Curtis Jacobson, president and CEO of Corporate Technology Group, a solution provider in Missoula, Mont., said the Emerging Vendor program should benefit both vendors and solution providers.

"One of the toughest things is connecting to vendors and finding new opportunities," Jacobson said. "It would be nice to have someone there to help you deliver on that opportunity."

Jacobson said he would like to see Tech Data showcase new vendors in wireless, security, telephony and document imaging.

The reorganization is part of an overall reinvention of how Tech Data takes products to market. By the end of this year, Tech Data will have profiled 90 percent or more of its customers as part of a companywide effort to drive demand through the channel. The company will use data mined from solution providers under a new TD Demand initiative to help vendors drive additional sales of related products, services and warranties.

According to Brian Gibson, director of marketing services at Tech Data, those profiles, created using data-mining tools, will be updated every quarter.

As part of this effort, Gibson said that Tech Data's sales engineers and vendor product representatives will be retrained to focus on closing sales, rather than just advising customers.

"We want to get these people focused on proactive selling," Levy said.

Furthermore, Tech Data plans to significantly upgrade its Web search engine by adding better support for context relevance, while also increasing its targeted marketing capabilities through audio webcasts and instant messaging.

Tech Data previewed the new Web search features at its last TechSelect conference in July, Jacobson said. "I was wishing they'd hurry and get it implemented," he said. "It makes it a smarter search. If you say a certain thing, it doesn't take it literally. For example, laptop and portable are now the same thing. Before [those words] wouldn't bring the same results."

According to Nestor Cano, Tech Data's president of worldwide operations, the distributor is currently in the midst of re-engineering its U.S. operations to mirror the demand-driver model the company uses in Europe.

"We want to do a much better job influencing demand," Cano said. "With our culture we can only focus on one or two things and do them really well.

In the last few years, that focus has been on cost. But with the economy changing, the time has now come for use to focus on demand generation."

SCOTT CAMPBELL contributed to this story.