Hansford re-joins IBM to head up distribution

By Paul Kunert

25 July 2008

Identifying efficiencies and simplifying the engagement with distributors is the role IBM has passed to Gareth Hansford, who returns to Big Blue three years after transferring with the PC division that was sold to Lenovo.

As revealed first by Microscope in May, Hansford left Lenovo where he had initially ran the UK operation after the sale and more recently headed up the vendor’s consumer division across EMEA

Reviewing the sales metrics and channel inventory levels is part of the work facing Hansford, IBM vice president for distribution sales across north east Europe but he also wants to look at how easy it is to engage with the vendor.

“From my first impressions it seems like IBM could be easier to do business with, we have good products and channel programmes but perhaps we need to keep things simple for distributors to drive volumes,” he said.

Hansford’s role covers the UK, Ireland, the Nordics, Switzerland, Germany and Austria and distribution partners include SCH, CCD, Northamber, Interface, Ingram, Avnet and DNS Arrow.

He said his remit is to drive greater efficiencies across the distribution channel and an element of that will be looking at whether the pan-EMEA model is cost effective.

With 15 to 20 reseller programmes run by IBM in the UK, Rob Tomlin, sales director at Interface, said Big Blue needed to simplify the schemes and urged the vendor to shout more loudly about them in the market.

“There are some rival busting programme but they need to be communicated more effectively by IBM and its distributors,” he said.

Dealing with IBM at the front-end was straight forward said DNS Arrow UK managing director Steve Pearce but he welcomed improvements to back-office functions in terms of processes and the speed of operations.

IBM is set up in silos with different technologies and brands and it needed to bring them together to make it easier to distributors to promote solution selling said Sukh Rayat, EMEA vice president of sales at Avnet Technology Solutions.

Hansford was reluctant to talk about potential consolidation in its distribution channel but partners will no doubt be on their toes for the next few quarters.