Dave Rosenberg (Westcon-Comstor)
Ahead of Westcon-Comstor New Zealand’s results for its latest financial year, managing director Dave Rosenberg has claimed the distributor exceeded its goals in 2023, with “double digit growth” across all metrics.
The claim was made during its Imagine 2023 conference in Wellington on 10 May – its first such event in five years – to a 500-strong crowd of vendors, partners and end users.
However, it wasn’t just about financial goals, Rosenberg said, but cultural too.
“Our staff engagement was up over 85 per cent, we have over 50 per cent gender diversity in our business with the leadership team leading the way with 70 per cent women,” he said.
“I’m extremely proud of this statistic, as this has purely been achieved by employing the right person for the right role, as well as being supportive of flexible working environments to those parents returning to work.”
Communities and social responsibility through its environmental, social, and governance (ESG) programme were high on the list of the company's priorities. The distributor has committed to achieving the ISO (International Organisation for Standardisation) 9001 certification, relating to quality management and reduction of waste, as well as the ISO 14001 environmental management certification.
Rosenberg also touched on the rate of change and innovation experienced by the distribution industry, evolving towards a more outcome-focused business hinged on digitisation and automation as well as social responsibility and sustainability.
He noted that services offered by Westcon-Comstor currently include education, certification and enablement, virtual and physical training, subscription and renewal management, cloud billing, supply chain management, specialised pre- and post-sales resourcing and visibility through data analytics.
Westcon-Comstor’s PartnerCentral marketplace launch, which took place last month, was also acknowledged, as Rosenberg emphasised how the NZ business leverages investment and expertise within the wider global company to benefit the local region.
“We are an extension of our partners,” he said. “This is especially important in a market which is remote and relatively small in the overall scale of the global economy.
“New Zealand has been, and is, a market which leads in many areas of IT. We are early adopters and have some solutions which are build and adopted well ahead of the rest of the world.
“[Westcon-Comstor New Zealand is] not an extension of Australia, as many of our competitors are. We are in New Zealand, we pay tax in New Zealand, we are measured in New Zealand and we have the autonomy to make decisions locally.
“In our business we have no desire to be the largest distributor. Our focus is to be the best in our areas of expertise – being networking, security, infrastructure, cloud and unified communications.”
