D&H Canada is starting its 10th fiscal year in the country with three big investments.
The first is the summer opening of a brand new Western Canadian distribution centre in Richmond, B.C. The new facility will be the centerpiece of the distributors 10 year anniversary celebration this summer. D&H also plans on creating a special Western Canadian trade show for the region similar to events held in Toronto and Montreal. These events will be positioned as educational opportunities for solution providers in tier-two populations centres, which will augment service in areas beyond the typical Eastern metropolitan hubs such as Montreal and Toronto.
The second significant investment is a $160 million investment in annualized incremental buying power for close to 400 Canadian solution providers. This was made by D&H partners achieving replenishable monthly credit extensions, the company said.
The extensions are intended to jump-start business for emerging solution providers, and fuel growth for more established resellers; in addition to increasing channel breadth for vendors. The distributor also plans to invest in new sales personnel, enhanced logistics, and added warehouse space to accommodate underserved territories specifically for Western Canada.
On top of that, D&H Canada will launch a new “team activities” initiative to enhance D&H’s work-life balance.
Greg Tobin
Greg Tobin, general manager at D&H Canada, said the distributor is looking to serve as an ideal distribution partner for its reseller partners across multiple markets and expects to add resources, creating a long-term plan to devote more support to the overall ecosystem of the channel. The D&H team is also vested in enhancing the systems and logistics that make our transaction processes faster and more efficient for our partners.
In 2016, Tobin injected an incremental $80 million in annual credit capacity to hundreds of qualified SMB resellers. In an interview with CDN, Tobin said he saw a problem with credit capacity in the channel and the results of this action turned into a huge receivables gain for the distributor. “The word spread and when was the last time you got good news from the credit department?”
The $160 million in annualized incremental credit will mark D&H Canada’s largest credit enhancement initiative to date, the company will roll-out credit increases for more than 400 channel partners. The initiative will augment individual credit lines across a broad portfolio of D&H Canada resellers, to increase buying power on a wide scale.
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The third major investment is with its E3 (Engage, Educate & Enable) service model. D&H has developing a new “E3” customer-centric service model for its base of solution providers that will feature new training opportunities and boot camps.
Another area of focus for D&H Canada, is growing customer breadth for its vendors across-the-board. The company anticipates an increase of close 500 new solution provider customers this fiscal year, representing close to a 10 per cent projected overall increase to its existing customer base. While channel breadth is declining for many manufacturers, D&H Canada intends to increase support and funding for it manufacturer partners to generate additional sales across its growing solution provider community.
Expect D&H to increase its headcount because of the new Western Canadian facility. The company said the new sales staff will be in place to accommodate new growth and maintain its ongoing “high-touch” service model. The company will add staff in Western Canada to support the other new investments in those western provinces.
In addition, D&H Canada will enhance its customer-centric resources, adding more pre-sales support specialists to its existing team of sales technologists.