IT reseller software vendor, Intersell, has taken the wrappers off a national Buyers Group for its 400-strong member base.
Newly appointed Intersell national sales and vendor relations manager, Adam Blue, said the aim of the group was to pool together reseller buying power to access aggregated product information, purchasing and financing offerings, as well as promote better business behaviour. The Buyers Group is being launched at events in Sydney and Melbourne this month.
“There is heaps of waste and inefficiency in the IT industry – in distribution, around ordering sales and around marketing for instance,” Blue said. “The aim of our group is to promote better business processes and use technology to reduce costs, create efficiencies and improve profitability for vendors, distributors and resellers.”
Blue stressed the group was not about giving vendors or Intersell’s exclusive distributor, Ingram Micro, a “haircut”. Alongside assisting partners with IT vendors and distributors, he pointed to a raft of other back-end and non-trading business costs resellers shared such as HR, marketing, accounting, insurance, legal, logistics and administration.
One of the first points of focus will be to address freight and insurance costs. Intersell is working with insurance brokerage group, Steadfast, to provide reseller members with access to a group policy covering public indemnity insurance. Blue said bringing members together under one policy would give them access to cost savings, as well a stronger voice with providers.
Intersell has also established a relationship with third-party credit provider, MoneyTech, to deliver finance facilities to its members using its online toolkit. Its Online Reseller Business Tools (ORBIT) include marketing tool, CampaignBuilder, TechLink4U e-commerce website package, QuoteBuilder, WarrantyTracker, and IntersellCRM. All tools, with the exception of CRM, are available for a flat $200 monthly fee.
Longer-term, Intersell hopes to establish engagements with vendors on behalf of the group to get improved pricing and more streamlined inventory management. The company also established member advisory boards in each state.
“We could end up expanding into installation services for example… and ultimately share skills,” Blue said. “We’re starting with the low-hanging fruit, which is insurance and freight.”
He also stressed the agenda was set by member feedback.
Intersell has 400 members nationally signed up its ORBIT suite. Blue hoped to see numbers increase to 700 over the next 12 months. Most of its resellers have less than 10 employees with revenues of around $1 million per annum. The company added more than $40m in sales were generated through member TechLink4U sites each year, and over 1800 orders per month.
Blue said the launch of Intersell’s software annuity tool, LicenceTracker, had also seen several larger software integrators come on-board over the past 18 months.
MoneyTech managing director, Hugh Evans, was pleased to be working with the Intersell group and would work proactively with resellers around its credit and financing offerings.
“We are an independent, third-party player for the industry. We will work with any IT group and distributors to grow our business and enhance cash flow in the channel,” he said.
Evans said MoneyTech was not impacted by the insurance-based credit clampdown being experienced in distribution.
