Ingram closes Adelaide and ACT offices

Ingram Micro is closing its Adelaide and ACT branches as part of a broader restructure of the group’s staff and operations.

According to a letter sent to Adelaide resellers and sighted by ARN, Ingram will close the South Australia office but retain five staff to oversee operations across the state. They will be supported virtually and by an increased team in the distributor’s Melbourne office. The Adelaide branch will run as normal until April 30.

Across the Adelaide-based commercial team, Ingram will retain Paul Zitis as account manager and Con Dalas as the Diamond business development manager. It has also appointed 10-year veteran, Frank Tenaglia, as regional sales manager for Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania. He will be based in Melbourne.

The consumer field sales team will be represented by Monica Samra and Neville Sparks in Adelaide, while Fred Barwa-Bosco will cover HP business as Business Partner Solutions Architect. SA manager, Stewart Goodier, has been made redundant.

“Please be assured that this decision has not been taken lightly and is not a reflection of the performance of the South Australian branch,” Ingram A/NZ vice-president, Jay Miley, said in the letter. “We believe closing the physical office will enable us to continue to provide the level of local service our South Australian partners expect while allowing us to invest in resources at a national level to support our local field staff more efficiently.

“It also enables IMA [Ingram Micro Australia] to maintain our national commitment, service levels and competitive cost structure in these challenging economic times.”

As part of the ACT office closure, Ingram has made Lynn Deutrom redundant. Longstanding employees, Annette Inglis and Karen Ruiz, will remain on-board, supported by additional staff in NSW. The changes come into effect at the end of March.

“It’s a difficult decision – the options were to salami slice headcount throughout Australia, which would have been hard on Ingram Micro people, and reduced levels of service,” commercial sales and marketing director, John Walters, told ARN. “So we decided to go deeper in a couple of areas and close the physical ACT and SA offices. By doing so, it allows Ingram to leverage operational costs around that and retain more headcount.”

Walters stressed Ingram’s ongoing commitment to both markets and said senior management would increase regular visits to each state. Walters and Miley will be in Adelaide and Canberra next week to discuss the changes with customers.

Earlier this week, Ingram Micro cut 7 per cent of its local workforce as part of a restructure of the distributor’s operations. The redundancies included former Solutions Group general manager, Stuart Ellis, as well as virtualisation manager, Peter Pollari.

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