CHANNEL NEWS
Actebis boosts VAD approach
GERMANY
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with an increasing focus on our
reselling partners.” Neumeier is particularly keen to ensure close links between this sector and the company’s broadline business. The combination of volume products and services, consultancy- intensive products and solutions, and consultancy services gives resellers very clear added value from a single source. Dieter Hahn (above) is already familiar
with both broadline business and value-added distribution. He spent the last ten years working for DNS Deutschland GmbH, which recently became Arrow Enterprise Computing Solutions. “We have built up our VAD Business the last
years and the VAD organization now is a further consequent step on that way,” says spokesperson Andrea Camen. The course was set with new managing director Uwe Neumeier who came in October last year. “The time is ready for a VAD organization (beside the volume organization) due to a lot of new manufacturers and vendor IBM who came on board in October, and whose completely product portfolio we got in April. The target is to connect the volume and value business in an optimal way.”
www.actebis.com
Skills in demand cause pay jumps
EUROPE
1
“I’ve never seen a market quite like
this one, where stabilisation is occurring in IT employment and salaries, but pay and demand for specific skills is so up and down within windows as short as three months. There are clearly other factors than the recession at work here,” observes David Foote, Foote Partners co-founder.
www.footepartners.com
OUR ANALYSIS
We predict a bust-up soon over increased skills and accreditation levels demanded by vendors and falling marginal pay rewards for such skills. Employees will need paying for extra effort.
30 APR 2010
Constrained markets hit brokers
EUROPE
1 Networks says: “I do believe networking
equipment has become harder to come by in the last 12+ months, and that has been peaking in the last three months. I believe that in simple terms we have gone from over-supply, combined with lowered demand (economy, uncertainty in markets, consolidation) to lowered production / less supply, and a increasing demand.” And he agrees with Jon Pritchard that customer
expectations may have changed: “Clients and the channel have been used to a just-in-time delivery/ order process. Now, with significant lead times, they are having to adjust their cultures if they wish to fulfil orders in as timely a way as possible.” This is coupled with the fact that clients are
extending the life of their current assets, and purchasing spares in the refurbished equipment marketplace. Is any particular type of networking equipment or brand more affected? “Cisco, by virtue of their market percentage.
Nortel, as a result of the trauma of bankruptcy, and acquisition by Avaya. I can’t knowledgeably
Outsourcing gives Tieto bonus
FINLAND
BUSINESS transfers to offshore countries are straining net sales, but at the same time they contribute to improved profitability, says Tieto which reported better figures this week. First-quarter net sales declined by 3% and amounted to €422.9m (€438.0m). In most industries, outsourcing activity was at a good level and the sales pipeline is strong, but that did not translate to growth yet, it admits. Outsourcing-related sales grew during the first quarter, but that did not compensate for the decline in project-based business. Tieto’s share of employees in the global delivery
centres stood at 32% at the end of March. The Nordic IT services market is expected to
start growing in the second half of 2010. Growth estimates for the full year provided by market analysts vary from 0% to 2%. President and CEO Hannu Syrjälä (above): “Operating margin excluding one-off items almost doubled to 6.3% from last year, but our sales are affected by lower price levels due to increased use of offshore resources..”
www.tieto.com
speak to other brands. Most of our equipment is purchased as refurbished equipment.” He believes it is tied to the economic cycle, so
that an upturn reduces the amount of kit available, or vice versa. The current state of the market is “Quietly busy” - good business appears to be being done, although it appears to be being done by fewer players. Matthew Archer is on the Board of Directors for
UNEDA - the United Network Dealers Association which says it represents over 230 worldwide Cisco brokers with an annual turnover of two billion US dollars of new, used and refurbished products. Another member of UNEDA, Omar Beyhum,
network sales manager at Dutch brokerage Smith & Associates, sees a growing demand for Cisco products and components. “These are golden times. Our revenues increased by 30 percent compared to last year due to the scarcity in the market. Every week we get two new customers (mostly Cisco partners),” he was reported as saying.
www.comstor.com www.icpnetworks.com
Morse falls into private hands
UNITED KINGDOM
LONDON-listed IT services provider Morse has agreed to a 51p a share bid from private-equity funded 2e2. It values Morse at £69.8m. Acceptances totalling 54.1% of Morse have already been received. Private equity-backed 2e2 was formed in 2002 and in the past three years it has bought AIM- quoted Compel and Netstore. Morse has had a difficult history - restructuring
several times, spinning of Monitise, and changing leadership. A year ago, shares in Morse rose after it appointed a new chief executive while it continues to restructure the business. It also sold off its Jersey-based investment consultancy which left it with four units - infrastructure services and technology units in the UK, a not so good business in Spain, and Ireland and an applications business. The combined sales of the enlarged group are
£414m with a EBITDA of £40m. 2e2 will contribute half the revenues and 75% of that EBITDA,
www.morse.com
OUR ANALYSIS
This has taken some time to arrive - Morse was a company with some good parts and reputation but problems of execution.
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