CompuCom CEO Kevin Shank: ‘I Have Unfinished Business Here’

After you left CompuCom, you probably kept at least one eye open on what was happening here. How did CompuCom change between when it was independent and when it was acquired by ODP? And how is it different now that it is independent again?

If you think about what was going on in technology at that point, it was the advent of tablets. People were carrying more powerful smartphones. People were wondering where the desktop and laptop technology was going to go in the future with all these other new devices. And there was this big discussion about whether it was going to be ‘N plus 1,’ a laptop plus all these things, or were laptops going to go away and it was all going to be about tablets. Well, the future has now spoken. And it’s all of the above. I think CompuCom had really carved out a very solid foundation in end-user compute and service desk in that Fortune 1000-type customer base. We were a very well-known, well-branded company, and very well respected in that space. And I think some of the changes in the industry, after [I] left, led it to look at, should they shift the business? Should they look at going downstream into the midmarket and small- and medium-size customers? Look at what was happening with Best Buy and the Geek Squad and around retail.

A lot of people saw opportunity there. Office Depot obviously saw an opportunity there. This happened after I left. But I think that took a lot of the focus of the company away from large enterprise customers, where the company really thrived and was well respected. And it changed the focus of the company a bit. I can’t talk about whether that was good or bad or indifferent. I had left CompuCom and became CEO of Pivot and helped Pivot on its journey later to sell it to Computacenter in November of 2020. You’ve seen the results: When I departed Computacenter, CRN had just named me the No. 1 [Fast Growth 150] executive in North America. I’ve been in the industry 30 years. I know a lot of the private equity companies, and the public companies. I know a lot of the OEM partners, the distribution partners. And I saw a wonderful opportunity to come back and help CompuCom, and I want to be here. I probably had other opportunities, but I wanted to be here. I have unfinished business here. I have a lot of people that know me here, that remember the CompuCom that was focused on those enterprise-class customers and delivering world-class service and growing fast. And I firmly believe we can do that again.