By Paul Kunert
4 September 2008
Dealer buying group Brigantia has not renewed Ingram Micro’s contract after the two failed to agree on rebates, delivery and service level agreements.
This means that the broadline giant will need to transact business with suppliers in the group independently as its Associate Membership has been rescinded.
Ian Shaw, head of Brigantia, said the decision had been taken because distributors’ rebates were used to subsidise “very low membership fees” to cover the costs of running the group.
“Ingram Micro UK (IMUK) seemed to be under the impression that they could make use of Brigantia’s services for free and this was not the case,” he told Microscope.
“The level of rebate being asked for was very low but there was no sustainable deal on the table from IMUK and I was left with the impression that Briganita was simply being considered as a marketing agency and not a subscription membership community,” he added.
In one recent month member purchases through Ingram fell 55% and despite a letter sent to participating resellers from the distributor’s managing director Julian Klein, the situation did not change, said Shaw.
However more supportive distributors including Enta Technologies had seen purchases rising, he pointed out Ingram had not actively participated in community forums and the like.
Ingram has an agreement with office stationary and IT buying group Integra and Bhavesh Patel, commercial director at the distributor said it had a strong and long trading history with dealer consortiums.
“The issue [with Brigantia] was that in the current climate we could not meet its expectations to conclude a contract,” he said, adding it could still supply resellers in the group but on an independent basis.
On Brigantia’s member forum, members expressed some disappointment at the loss of Ingram from the group but some commented service levels had been deteriorating anyway.
