Ingram Micro Ushers In Changes For the New Year

Like a lad with a fresh list of New Year's resolutions, Ingram Micro greeted 2007 with a host of changes it hopes will solidify its position atop the distribution heap and help it compete with a growing cadre of smaller specialty distributors. In varying degrees of consequence and intention, the restructuring also seeks to help resellers navigate Ingram's channel programs and gain access to a wider variety of technology and support services.

The streamlining of Ingram's vendor-facing groups by combining them with VAR sales and operations teams is not without its pitfalls, however. Ingram execs say they're committed to ensuring that vendor concerns don't begin to dominate the strategy in the new units. As for the VARs that depend on the distributor, the organizational shift should improve the overall relationship, but will require a steady stream of feedback to make sure solution providers' concerns are heard.

Specifically, Ingram is merging its North American vendor-management and sales teams, combining its operations and purchasing groups and creating a new Strategic Initiatives Execution group. Ingram execs say the changes will keep the company growing and profitable and help the disty diversify into new markets. Senior vice president Brian Wiser, a 21-year Ingram veteran, has been tapped to head the combined vendor-management and sales teams while senior vice president Terry Tysseland will lead operations and purchasing. Ingram's North America CFO, Ross Crane, will take on responsibility for the fledgling strategic initiatives team.

Keith Bradley, president of Ingram North America, says the changes are designed to drive more accountability and lay the foundation for further growth. "We've always listened to the customer, but we may not have been as nimble or quick on decisions as we needed to be," Bradley says. "We're putting our sales and vendor-management teams together, [but] we're also empowering everyone in the organization to treat the individual technology groups as if they were the only profit pool."

Some current Ingram customers agree.

"Combining resources is a very good move on Ingram's part," says Mike Novotny, founder, president and CEO of Phoenix-based InterTech Computer Products. "Both sides of the house impact our ability to deliver products and services to our customers."

Bradley says he's convinced Ingram needs to listen to VARs and educate vendors in order to succeed. "Why do we exist? We need to help vendors take their products to market, sure, but we're telling those vendors that distributors and VARs are the only way to get to four million SMBs," he says. "We continue to make sure vendors are focused on that reality. It's up to us to identify solutions and place products into those solutions."

"Ingram has consistently demonstrated that they listen to their customers and take our needs and feedback seriously," Novotny says. "I'm not concerned at all about a single unit that deals with both vendors and resellers or them being swayed by vendors in any way."

While the merged vendor-management teams should improve access and response times, and the combined operations and purchasing unit promises more efficient distribution of products, it's the new Strategic Initiatives Execution team that will be charged with taking Ingram into new business areas and markets. Team leader Crane will continue to oversee the North American financial team but will now be responsible, too, for future strategic and growth initiatives in North America.

"We want to identify areas of specialized need where customers may be talking to specialty vendors today," Bradley says. "In the areas we decide to work in, we'll have all the benefits of a large distributor plus the benefits of multiple specialty distributors all in one place."

"We see this move as a continuation of [Ingram's] efforts to add more efficiency to the business processes that touch our daily operations," Novotny says.

"When Ingram allows us to expand our customer reach through specialty or niche areas, they bring us not only the product lines but also educational opportunities on how to develop these areas as a revenue stream," he adds. "The other value we see from the Strategic Initiatives Execution Team is that projects that historically took months if not years should now become reality much faster."