Disties need technology upgrades too, and Arrow ECS has gone through a big one – bringing its entire North American business onto one common platform. Why should resellers care? This technology upgrade will help Arrow’s partners capture more cross-sell and up-sell opportunities.
It’s also a good example of how a company is taking a forward-thinking approach and investing in technology despite the economic downturn. We’ve seen plenty of examples of companies doing the opposite – not necessarily killing off their IT projects, but shelving them indefinitely.
Many industry experts say, time and time again, that now is the time to invest – not stagnate. And those who invest now will fare much better when we come out of this recession.
What’s different this time around, compared to the dot-com bust, is that smart companies aren’t blaming IT for their demise, but rather seeing it as a way to get out of it. In fact, in a recent survey by Gartner of 1,527 CIOs across 48 countries and 30 industries, only one in five reported a cut in their 2009 IT budget, while a third reported no change from 2008 and 46 per cent reported a slight increase.
For many companies, cutbacks and belt-tightening measures have been necessary – and a good opportunity to get rid of bloat. But those who’ve been through this before know that cutting back on staff and postponing investments doesn’t position the company for growth when good times return. That’s not to say investments should be reactive – but smart investments can save money while providing a leg-up on competitors who are solely focused on surviving the recession. It also shows customers you’re confident enough to invest in your business while others appear to be in panic-mode.
So Arrow has made a smart move with a smart investment, by bringing its Alternative Technology, Hewlett Packard’s (NYSE: HPQ) and Storage groups onto an Oracle platform (earlier this year it converted its MOCA/Sun Microsystems and IBM groups to Oracle). This will provide an infrastructure for more holistic solutions, allowing Arrow to aggregate and analyze sales information and market opportunities to help resellers make better business decisions.
What resellers will see is the completed version of the MyArrow portal for all North American Arrow ECS groups. The portal will offer improved item and price searches, order tracking and account balance summaries; a new invoice system with capabilities to search, download, export and print; order status, service annuity and inventory tracking; and personalized pricing correlated to authorizations and certifications. And a relationship management system will allow Arrow to share and collaborate on leads with resellers.
More likely than not, Arrow’s partners are glad this particular project wasn’t put on a shelf.