Resellers everywhere have been discussing the evolving nature of their role and the need to adapt as new technologies and new ways of doing business emerge. But what about the distributor? According to Nick Verykios, managing director of Distribution Central, the distie role is also transforming.
In his recent visit to New Zealand, Verykios talked with Reseller News about the “new generation of services and ideas” he says Distribution Central is going through. “We are innovating at a very high speed. If you are from the outside looking in, you could say it is out of control, but it is not,” he says.
Verykios says new technologies are responsible for this change and mentions big data, the cloud, mobility, and social business as the main drivers for the transformation. "We are not interpreting these as technologies but as strategies,” he adds.
He says the market is “polarising between exceptional innovators and exceptional implementers” and it is vital for distributors to invest in knowledge centres and services so resellers can help customers. “It is about giving resellers expertise to piece all these new technologies together and find more contemporary ways to answer customers' problems.”
Verykios says Distribution Central is putting its money where its mouth is by heavily investing in knowledge centres to help resellers. “Our new location in Auckland is a knowledge centre, open to resellers to empower them to understand the technologies.” The company also has a number of reseller tools at the R&D stage as it works on signing on new vendors and resellers and expanding its reach further into New Zealand.
After recently signing on seven new vendors, the company is working on expanding its reseller base significantly says Verykios. The company is also planning to expand to other areas of the country by adding staff and opening new office locations within the next 12 months. "We plan to have another four people minimum by the end of this year. We will be opening an office in Wellington and, after that, in the South Island,” he says.
“The distie role is absolutely changing, through market forces and opportunities and necessity,” he says, adding that the transformation fuels and justifies bigger investments. “The quality of people here in New Zealand is awesome. You can hire really creative people and they are willing to take risks. That suits us.”
