Westcon Launches Logistics Support For Cross-Border Opportunities

The Tarrytown, N.Y.-based distributor has promoted Simon Minett to lead the organization as executive vice president of global operations and logistics.

“This is about pulling together best practices from across the operational side of the business. Westcon is leveraging our position of a global distributor. I’m seeking to roll out best practices and efficiencies and effectiveness across different operations in North America, Latin America, Europe, Africa, Middle East and out to Asia Pacific,” Minett said.

Westcon has dozens of partners who operate on a global basis, but there are more regional players who often come across projects that necessitate cross-border logistics that can take advantage of the program too, Minett said.

“It’s very hard as a regional player when you secure a large contract with global deployment to understand all the rules and regulations involved and do it in a tax-efficient manner,” Minett said. “We quite often are able to make significant savings for customers exporting configured product to global locations because we are able to provide in-country supply which cuts down on freight but also unrecoverable tax too.”

For example, Westcon can supply, configure and deploy product in multiple countries and at the end of the lease, it can pick up, reconfigure and redploy the same product, Minett said.

“We can manage that investment through to disposal or trade-in of that product,” Minett said. “Over the last two or three years, that’s become more important to global solution providers.”

Westcon does business in 35 countries across the world, Minett said.

“This is a powerful solution not only to provide a single point of contact, but also the ability to utilize local entities for local support, local language, local tech support, and billing in-country where the solution is being deployed. And at the same time, it offers centralized account management and order management,” Minett said.

In addition to Minett’s appointment, Westcon Group has named Bernie Kelley vice president of operations to manage the operations and logistics organization in the Americas and Chris Leeming has been named vice president of business operations, responsible for the company’s global distribution model.