From the Trenches: Distribution rumblings

OPINION: I don’t know about you, but I was taken aback by the news that both Kerry Baillie and Steve Rust were ejecting themselves from the newly merged Ingram Micro/Tech Pacific juggernaut.

Am I missing something here? Baillie -- who is 60 years old -- spoke with me and was adamant that he had been ready to go for some time.

One wonders why he took the job in the first place. After all, he was appointed managing director of the new company in January -- only five months ago. Rust’s departure made more sense, because as chief operating officer he didn’t get the top gong.

A day after their announcement, Ingram Micro’s mother ship in the US also announced that three vice-presidents (can someone please tell me how three people can all be VPs?) were leaving the company as it integrated its US and Canadian teams. Are these events interlinked? Like other bosses in the distribution industry, I honestly thought that Kerry was the man for the job and he would be around for a while yet.

Over the past four years, he had managed to help put Tech Pacific in a better financial position than it ever had been. Still, it’s likely that the big US bosses wanted him in the role to ensure the integration of these two businesses happened smoothly. And according to both Baillie and Rust, this job has already been done.

With this aside, a theory that seems to make more sense would be that the new entity needs to manage costs. I’ve been through enough ‘company acquisitions’ myself to understand that making sure an organisation of this size remains profitable in many future quarters is the number one priority.

Appointing Guy Freeland, a former Ingram Micro Asia-Pacific CFO, seems to make sense if this is the case. You know what they say: accountants end up running companies. Who knows how these resignations will affect the distributor? Maybe there is quite a bit of work to do yet.


Whitebox bonanza
Just quickly, CRN will be holding its inaugural whitebox seminar event on 14 July, featuring speakers from the component vendor and system builder communities.

Any system builders or resellers wanting to find out more about the future of the whitebox market in Australia should click here to register. First in best dressed!