Confessions of an entrepreneur

The sale went through on 1 December last year, and Oki retained IPL's 10 employees in that division. Oki Australia will stay in IPL's premises in Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne for the next year until it can sign other leases.

"It's been a field day for the lawyers and accountants," says Denton.

 "After having been a business partner for 27 years it's been emotional. I was in Japan last week when the president of Oki gave me a farewell ceremony which was lovely; all the senior Oki executives attended," says Denton.

At the ceremony Denton was presented with an unusual present, a box with a pair of cranes in silver, with the engraving, "In recognition of service to Oki in the Australian market".

"Then we went out and had 3,000 sakis. It was an emotional moment for me," confesses Denton.

On the day that Denton sold out of one company, he bought into another. IPL, which has a separate division in communications selling brands such as Alcatel and Siemens, took over distribution of Panasonic Australia's IP Telephony range in Australia.

"We will be a purely communications company now, whereas before we had a leg in both camps," says Denton. However, the transition was smaller than some would expect. While Oki is mainly known in Australia as a printer company, in Japan its main business is telephony.

Denton says Oki is the number one IP PBX vendor in Japan, and the vendor makes carrier-grade infrastructure products which subsidiary IPL Communication has sold to Optus and AAPT in Australia.

IPL Communication, which has picked up 10 Panasonic staff, was roughly the same size as the OKI business, says Denton. He says the fact that IPL is dealing with another Japanese company, this time a $100 billion giant, is no coincidence.

"To be quite honest I think I half think in Japanese. They are very logical, there are no two agendas with the Japanese. I've dealt with Korean, Japanese, German and French over the years ,and the Japanese are far more logical to deal with.

"They have a far better understanding of who they are and where they want to go. I always gravitate towards them."

Panasonic's decision to go with IPL marks the first time the vendor has moved away from supplying the channel directly. Denton calls it a "bold move", and says the interview process took "many, many months".  "We spent a lot of time in the due diligence."

One reason for the move to channel was the transition from analogue to IP telephony, says Denton. The majority of phone systems sold in Australia are still analogue keyphone systems, of which Panasonic has an 18 percent share.

The vendor is also the number-one seller of handsets in the world, claims Denton. "Panasonic have a great brand name in Australia," he says.

Read on for Panasonic's plans in Australia.