Avnet boss spies more channel opportunity

Avnet's Gavin Lawless sees the potential for more channel opportunity

The economic downturn will see more vendors look to channels for customer growth as well as value-added services and support, Avnet’s country manager claims.

In an exclusive interview with ARN, the distributor’s Australian general manager, Gavin Lawless, predicted more vendors would look to push business through to channel partners to improve costs and processes. At the same time, he saw vendors looking to distributors to deliver more value-add around training, enablement and opportunity management.

“We don’t see it as doom and gloom as there’s opportunity for us and the channel,” Lawless said. “The total available market for the channel is growing, because vendors are relinquishing some of those markets – they can’t afford to have sales people selling into the mid-market when the channel can be doing it for them.”

He saw the market as flat, rather than declining this year, but was adamant customers would continue to invest in IT to fulfill business and operational needs.

“Even though organisations are making less money than they made last year and the year before, they still have a need,” Lawless said. “The market isn’t going to grow like it was, but it’s not a declining market.”

As a result, Avnet was sticking to its pre-planned go-to-market strategies and investing in better processes, he said.

For an in-depth look at Avnet’s strategies for 2009, check out our interview with Gavin Lawless in this week’s edition of ARN.

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