You did a lot of M&A between 2018 and 2022, mainly to expand in North America. Are you happy with your geographic coverage, and the product vs services split in each country?
No. In North America, we don’t have the services content anywhere near where we have it in Europe, and we would like it. We can’t force it. If the opportunities aren’t there to buy, at the price we’re prepared to pay, organically growing it is an option, but it takes a long time. I don’t need to make more acquisitions in North America, but I’d like to.
Now you’ve done all that geographic expansion, has that changed who you see as your peer group?
Yes, but I also think it’s because of their internationalisation as well. There are six big VARs in the world – WWT, SHI, CDW, Insight, Bechtle and ourselves.
Interestingly, the UK’s the only market in the world where all those companies exist. Not even in North America do they all exist – Bechtle doesn’t exist in North America. If you go to Germany probably only three of us exist. I’m not quite sure what the footprint of SHI and WWT is [in Germany] but don’t think they exist in France and Germany, but I’m quite happy to stand corrected.
Everybody wants to be in the UK as it’s an English-speaking country in Europe, so the Americans are quite comfortable here and the Europeans want to be here as it’s the second largest market in Europe.
We compete against lots of people in different places and at different times – service companies, vendor direct – but that is the predominant peer group. And even with those six people some are more midmarket or small-market focused and some are more big account-focused. They don’t all compete for everything, but they are the six big VARs in the world and there is consolidation around those six VARs.
It doesn’t mean they’re the only people. There are other resellers in the UK that people in Germany have never heard of and vice versa, and there are people on the West Coast of the US that people on the East Coast have never heard of – you’ll get local players. I think that will be a shrinking piece of the market, but it’s not going to disappear completely.
“More tech at the edge is good for VARs” – see next page for Norris’ views on AI…
