Walters strikes gold on the footy field, with WA resellers

Fifteen years after he hung up his rugby boots, John Walters again hit the paddock this year to pick up gold at the World Masters Games held in Sydney last week.

Walters, commercial sales and marketing director at distributor Ingram Micro Australia, (pictured) had to overcome knee surgery and a broken leg to play with team the Mosman Whales in the games.

"I played a lot of rugby up to the age of 33," said Walters, 48. "I hung the boots up and said that's it, never again.

"Earlier this year I was asked to play in a group of dads and colleagues who had coached their sons or watched their sons through the Mosman rugby club. What got me to go was it's a good bunch of blokes. We went down to Geelong (Australian Masters) and had a fabulous old-style touring party and won the gold medal."

That team, which went on to win in Sydney, was stacked with champions including Peter Fitzsimons and the first Australian professional gridiron player Peter Scotts, Walters said. Walters, who led resellers along the Kokoda track in April before his surgery, said such events created life-long bonds between participants: "a good blend of talent and good mob of blokes".

Walters, who hopped on a plane soon after the latest win to join Ingram managing director Jay Miley on a trip around the nation to meet resellers, said he will frame the jersey and medals "for the pool room".

He said the quarterly trip around the country was Miley's idea to show Ingram's commitment to resellers and staff.

"[Resellers] are looking for leadership from us in the distribution channel to provide even better service levels in key areas that take costs out of their business or help them win business," Walters said.

He said Ingram was listening to resellers' calls for better e-commerce integration with distributors' systems and electronic data interchange. Big resellers were already stitched into Ingram's platform but such "bespoke" or customised solutions were expensive and time-consuming. Apart from its TechLink e-commerce website, Ingram was working on standards to speed e-commerce communication between the distie and its customers, he said.

WA, hit hard by the resources bust last year, was a surprising bright spot for resellers as the state benefits from the refiring of demand from China and India, Walters said. "I was pretty buoyed from what I saw."

And resellers who used the recession to do more than sell boxes, those with solid customer relationships and services to sell especially around virtualisation, consolidation and unified communications or who dealt with government, were also benefiting, he said.

"Where they're seen as a trusted adviser, they're the ones still doing well in this downturn.  The resellers that aren't adding value - the box movers, product-only - are continuing to find it very tough."

As to his footy ambitions, Walters said he may dust off his boots for the Whales in 2013 at the next World Masters Games in Turino, Italy.

"The word on the street - or in the pubs over a beer after our win - is we're all thinking we should go over and defend our title and after that we'll stick to clay-pigeon shooting."