Specialism: Broadliner
Key vendors: Apple, AWS, Cisco, Dell, Google, HP, HPE, IBM, Lenovo, Microsoft, Samsung, VMware/Broadcom
UK gross revenue: £2.7bn (-7%)
UK headcount: 1,000 (1,300 including those with wider European roles)
The UK distribution market has experienced a steady return to growth in 2024, the UK&I VP of the world’s largest distributor, Dave Watts, told us (see Q&A below).
Although its latest UK accounts for its year to 30 November 2023 show revenues of £1.63bn, TD Synnex told us its UK gross invoiced income for the period was far higher, at around £2.7bn (down from £2.9bn the previous year). That would make it just £100m or so smaller than Westcoast locally.
Boasting offices in Basingstoke, Bracknell and Warrington, and a distribution centre in Magna Park, TD Synnex UK in October appointed a new VP Sales in the form of industry stalwart Phil Brown.
Globally, NYSE-listed TD Synnex’s new CEO Patrick Zammit was in September able to announce it had returned to growth in his first quarter in charge.
“We are more central now than we have ever been to the efficient operation of the supply chain”
Quickfire Q&A with VP UK&I Dave Watts
What is TD Synnex’s sweet spot?
The value we provide to our SMB partners by giving them access to specifically-designed platforms, programmes, services and resources, and our talented teams
Which product, service or vendor has stood out for you in 2024?
AI of course, but it’s a challenge for partners to grasp in terms of how it translates into real business. We’re steering them onto the right path with our Destination AI programme.
If you could change one thing about your business at the stroke of a wand, what would it be?
Make it even more efficient and automated, so our co-workers can spend more time focused on the human aspects of our business.
When will the UK distribution market return to growth?
CONTEXT has been predicting it will steadily return this year. Our experience to date is in line with that.
Name one area of your business where you are expecting to add staff in 2025?
We continue to add resources into high growth technologies to support our customers and drive innovation.
At its Channel Forums EMEA in October, Canalys characterised AWS Marketplace as one of the world’s largest distributors, owing to its growing third-party software business. On balance, do you agree?
I neither agree nor disagree. Our focus is on how our role in the channel is changing. Platforms, including ours, are core, of course, and we are more central now than we have ever been to the efficient operation of the supply chain and driving growth for our resellers and vendors.
If you could undertake a secret, two-week apprenticeship at another distributor to see how they roll, which would you choose?
At TD SYNNEX we run a lot of highly specialist businesses within our business. There are many small, very specialist value-add distributors out there I’d like to spend some time in to see how they think and plan when they can’t rely on the scale we have.
See who made the wider Oxygen 50 Must-Know IT Distributors 2024 here.
