For D&H, Small Is Big

The Lenovo deal is yet another sign that vendors are waking up to D&H's ability to provide incremental sales in a robust small-business market. It's important to note the Lenovo deal comes one year after D&H added networking kingpin Cisco Systems to its line card. What vendors like Cisco and Lenovo are finding is that D&H is generating demand from a hard-to-reach small-business audience.

Dan Schwab, vice president of marketing at D&H, says a big slice of the market that D&H serves is the microbusiness segment, which is defined as 20 users or less. Of course, D&H also does a lot of business in the 250-seat-and-below segment. The fact is most distributors simply can't profitably sell to the microbusiness segment. For D&H, dealing with these VARs is part of the company's DNA.

D&H's credit terms, stocking policies and strong channel rep network are all constructed to make the bread-and-butter small-business solution provider more successful. "We flock to that type of reseller," Schwab says. "There are a lot of nuances for those customers that other distributors just don't have." VARs that are advising clients to buy from behemoth CDW or retailers like Best Buy should turn to D&H. My bet is those VARs are leaving product money on the table.

Another one of the keys to D&H's success is the distributor's stable management team and unique regional shows. While rivals are engaging in management musical chairs, the Schwab formula has always been to attract good people and keep them (New England Regional Rep Doreen Affsa is a legend for her do- what-it-takes service for VARs). And watching VARs attend a D&H show, which always feature special show pricing, is like watching kids in a candy store. Serving small-business-focused VARs is big business. And no one is better at that big business than D&H.

What do you think of D&H? Let me know at (781) 839-1221 or via e-mail at [email protected].