DATA DIRECT
Taking the positives Data Direct has met the challenges that the economy has thrown at them – particularly Brexit – and helped to turn them into a positive.
Like all businesses, the past few years have been challenging for Data Direct with the twin impacts of COVID and Brexit – among others – but the company has turned around what could have been a negative and made it into a positive, which ensures that Peter Cowan, group chief operations officer, is looking forward with optimism. “Coming out of COVID, the biggest challenge was availability of components, particularly hardware. Consumables were also a challenge but we’re nearly now back at pre-COVID levels,” says Peter. “But the big gain we have seen is post-Brexit. The fact that Brexit precluded us from dealing easily with a lot of the European markets, it has also precluded a lot of our European competition from easily competing into the UK market. So, as a result, our domestic business has grown exponentially. “This ‘oven ready’ Brexit deal that we were supposed to have with Europe that effectively was going to mean business as normal, obviously has been proved not to be true. But like any situation you’re faced with, you have to deal with it. So we looked for the benefits of it and shifted accordingly.” Peter says that about 90% of what Data Direct spent on European business in the past has shifted to securing the company’s UK customer base and growing the range of services and products it brings to the UK Channel. “We don’t just sell toner, we look at what makes up the service to the dealer and deliver a whole package, including a competitive price, as well as things like direct deliveries, virtual warehousing, ByBox services and blank drop shipping, among others. We have been consolidating our services to dealers to make it easier for them to deal with us and to hit
their service levels and reduce their costs. Over the past three years that is what we’ve been doing successfully.” Another way in which Data Direct has made Brexit work for them is demonstrated in its contract with Olivetti. The Italian company closed its UK agency last year, and rather than try and deliver direct to the UK from Italy – and deal with the increased amount of red tape that now involves – Olivetti has contracted Data Direct to be its exclusive consumables and spares distributors for the UK. Peter adds that other European manufacturers are looking to set up similar agreements due to the problems shipping from Europe to the UK post-Brexit. Experience in the field With some European competitors scaling back their UK operations, especially in the field, in recent years, Data Direct has been quick to take advantage of the sudden influx of experienced salespeople into the job market by recruiting them to their operations. “We’ve got more people out in the field and more support functions now than pre-COVID,” Peter says. “We’re constantly benchmarking what we do and looking to improve on that and bring in new services to stay one step ahead. One way we can do that is by having guys out in the field and some of the guys who go out for us have been in the industry for 30-plus years; they know the people, know the questions to ask and constantly ask ‘what more can we do for you? What else are you looking for? What are your pain points?’ Rather than just shoving a cartridge over the desk and saying ‘here’s the price’; we’re a value-add supplier, rather than just a distributor. “People still buy from people. There is a
Peter Cowan group chief operations officer
data-direct.co.uk
We have been consolidating our services to dealers to make it easier for them to deal with us and to hit their service levels and to reduce their costs “ ”
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