Updated: Walters exits Ingram as sales teams are restructured

John Walters

Ingram Micro sales and marketing director, John Walters, has been made redundant following an overhaul of the distributor’s local sales and vendor operations.

Ingram Micro local vice-president and managing director, Jay Miley, announced the organisational changes to staff via a company memo today. Under the new structure, the distributor’s commercial sales teams have been divided into two core areas: Its Enterprise Technology Group (ETG) covering infrastructure solutions; and its Volume Business Unit (Volume BU).

“Each sales division will have its own resources and will be structured so that it can provide our partners the appropriate level of service required to meet the specific needs of the market,” Miley said in his email. “Additionally, this new structure will provide greater alignment with the vendor side of our business, which is similarly split along enterprise technology and volume technology lines.

“It’s critically important that we explore new and innovative ways to not only improve our customer focus, but to also increase the value we provide our partners, so they can do more business, more profitably.”

ETG leader, David Lenz, will now gain responsibility across the ETG sales team. He will be supported by three state managers: Thomas Fikentscher (NSW/ACT), Frank Tenaglia (Victoria/SA/Tasmania) and Aidan Fitzgerald (Queensland/NT/WA).

Miley said the company also planned to scale up its pre-sales quote team in the server, storage and networking areas.

He said the soon-to-be announced Volume BU general manager would be responsible for both the vendor and sales teams. They also include the Consumer and Trading groups.

The distributor’s former vendor manager, Matt Sanderson, was promoted to head up Ingram’s UK operations in October and starts his new role on January 4, 2010.

Walters has been with Ingram since 2004, initially joining Tech Pacific in 2002 before the two companies merged. In an email to staff, sighted by ARN, Walters said it became apparent his role would become redundant as a result of plans to bring sales and vendor management together. He wished Miley and the team the best in the future.

“I reviewed other roles in the new structure but none were of the scale or challenge that I could add value to,” Walters stated in his email. “I firmly believe that this new structure will differentiate us further and set our sales force up to win in a challenging market.”

Walters told ARN he would take some time off before looking for another opportunity in the channel space. Rather than stay in distribution, he hoped to find something in the vendor or reseller sectors.

“I’d like to stay in the channel as I love it. I’ll see what’s available and go from there,” he said. He also confirmed Sanderson’s departure was not the catalyst for any structural changes but was instead the culmination of six months’ work to boost the company’s sales capabilities.

“This restructure gives us the focus against our niche competitors and more differentiation,” Walters said. “It’ll now be up to the execution of the plan.”

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