Eight years in the vendor world and fifteen within distribution give Antony Byford the perfect background to guide Westcon in an ever-changing market place.
“Evolution and the pace of the market, it’s what’s kept me hungry and really got me to where I am today. I really thrive on the pace of the channel, it’s the place to be for me”
How did you become part of Westcon?
Antony explained to us that it was his discussions with Rene Klein, SVP Westcon Europe, that really garnered his interest in the role.
“He told me about his vision for the business, what the strategy was, how we were set up, what he was looking to achieve. I bought into that and thought it was a really compelling proposition.” Straight talking and focused Antony’s personality aligned well with Rene’s and after informal discussions it was clear a move to Westcon was one he couldn’t turn down.
“More importantly the man himself (Rene) – he’s an incredibly knowledgeable guy. I bought into him, not only what the business was doing”
What does the short-term and long-term strategy look like for Westcon?
Antony’s short-term plans for Westcon are for them to ensure their proposition in the channel is clear. Making sure that preparations for their new financial year, beginning in March, are in place is the priority. He will spend the next six weeks ensuring they are ready go to market, supporting their key vendors such as Avaya in the new FY. “There are some really interesting things happening. As they (Avaya) come out of chapter 11 and when the market reacts in the right way we need to make sure we are there to support the new Avaya.”
Long term their strategy is more fluid. A key focus for Westcon is attracting new partners and vendors to drive business forward.
“There are a lot of people knocking on the door right now, and I just want to make sure we get our business into the right structure to support those”
There is a lot of fluctuation in the market at the moment, how will that affect Westcon?
Westcon’s great relationships with their key vendors are critical to ensuring that they are well placed to understand and react to changes in the market place. This has allowed them to increase their market share across their portfolio of vendors. “(Avaya, Extreme and Polycom) Those are our top three vendors in the UC World and that’s been a recent success story.”
Although vendor relationships are key across distribution Antony believes the nature of these, from Westcon’s perspective, are vital. Westcon’s direct ties with their vendors differentiate their partnerships from that of competitors.
“The way we work with them, it’s very different to how our competition work with them and we take advantage of that”
Antony admits there is work to do with other vendors in the space, such as Microsoft, but they do have plans in the future to disrupt the current channel setup.
With ambitious plans going forward it will be exciting to see how Westcon can affect the UC and Collaboration world.
