Murray Wright took charge of Ingram Micro Canada as vice-president and general manager, with an eye to boosting the distributor’s e-commerce offerings.
In 2003, Wright continued that work, bringing a Webstore to its reseller base that will enable partners to do procurement and marketing online.
Called iBiz10, this e-commerce initiative furthers the distributor’s online strategy. The company already offers Mustang XML, Government e-pipeline, IM Pipeline and online account statements and credit card payment services.
Since Wright has been in charge of Ingram Micro’s Canadian operations, taking over for former Top 25 Newsmaker Kevin Murai, he has made e-commerce a mandate for the distributor.
Besides e-commerce, Wright furthered the already successful VentureTech Network (VTN) in Canada by committing more resources to marketing and training for partners.
VTN members, all $5-$10 million resellers who focus on the SMB space in local markets across Canada, continue to share best practices and experience with each other. The group, under Wright’s supervision, also looks at how they can develop new working strategies to compete in an increasingly crowded market.
It looks like the collaborative community strategy is working. While sales to other Ingram resellers in Canada declined over the past year, the trend was upward to VTN members.
In return, VTN members agreed to purchase 65 per cent of their distribution business from Ingram.
Also this year, Ingram Micro created a components business unit for VARs, system assemblers and system integrators.
The program will supply the channel with demand generation tools, volume pricing, reserve inventory, go-to-market strategies and just-in-time logistics. The unit is set up as a business within a business. VARs can purchase single products or in volume in transactional bundling so they can buy components as they need them.
The unit also helps Ingram to forecast better and drive down costs.
