“2007 has been a great year,” says Carter who joined the company in 2005 after many years as sales and marketing director at rival Nimans, “We achieved 65% growth in reseller sales, are selling more today than Nimans and have regained the number one slots as distributor for Panasonics, Siemens, Polycom and Plantronics. In the last 12 months our business has grown from £41 to just under £50 million. At the same time our direct sales business has relocated to group headquarters in Harlow.”
Carter says is working towards being a full support distributor but making sure he continues to get the basics right.
“Rocom is investing in ‘Total Distribution’ - think Johann Cruyff and the Dutch football team of the 1970's. Total distribution combines excellence in systems supply, excellence in peripherals supply, technical and sales training, and field based engineering support - install and maintain and not just desk tech support.
Add to this financial services, network services, design and print services, subsidized joint marketing campaigns, sophisticated e-trading solutions and photographic services.”
Carter adds, “I think you will find that none of the other distributors can offer all of the above. This is perhaps understandable when you consider that to achieve it we have had to invest in 150 field based engineers, an in-house award winning design agency, a dedicated team of network specialists, a separate finance team for leasing brokerage, our own photographic studio, a training centre, a team of web developers etc.etc.etc.”
Rocom is set to split its network services operation in to two parts; voice minutes and a new data products supply team where he will shortly announce a new product portfolio.
“The time is now right for talking to stop and the action to begin on selling solutions such as SIP trunks and hosted telephony. In 2008 all these applications are deliverable together with a growing appetite for them from the channel. Crucially, we now have an innovative financing package in place for resellers selling hosted IP telephony that will provide money up front just as if they were selling a traditional PBX system.”
Carter has also put in place a new team to sell Plantronics and Polycom conferencing applications based upon Microsoft OCS 2007.
“Timing is the key to developing new markets. Distributors have to wait until they see the ‘whites of the eyes’ when targeting new markets.”