MISSISSAUGA, Ont. — It must be nice to be Steve Raymund.

While some of the major distributors were ending 1999 in financial disarray, Clearwater, Fla.-based Tech Data Corp., of which he is chairman and CEO, managed to maintain performance on par with 1998. Not only that, but the company expanded into a true global entity, engulfing Munich, Germany-based distributor Computer 2000 AG.

Raymund was in town recently to address Tech Data Canada's first Vendor Summit, an event the company plans to hold annually. The purpose of the conference, according to Rick Reid, president of Mississauga-based Tech Data Canada Inc., is to bring together the company's vendors and work through issues that may come up later in the year.

"Distributors are beginning to look a little too much like the big banks in Canada," he said. "It's very hard to differentiate us from each other, and we want to do something a little unique. So we decided to have a large get-together once a year — never in the same place — and the purpose of that is to get together our key vendors and try to get them signed up ahead of time for which level of support they want from the company. Each different level gives you different access to the company."

Reid said that this sort of industry meeting is useful because it allows Tech Data to meet with all the vendors and iron out the details of the year's major events.

"Over the course of the year, the vendor will put on a number of events, and so will the distributor," he said. "And each time we do that, we have to go to them and ask them to sign off for us to use the co-op money that we've accumulated for having sold their products over the course of the year. And, it's a painful exercise," he said. "The event that we held with them today allows us to get pre-agreement from them on what we'll be doing with that co-op money. They sign up ahead of time, they know exactly what they'll be getting for the money they spend."

The meeting, on the whole, was a success, according to Reid. "The feedback from the vendor community today has been absolutely outstanding. That's the first time these vendors have done this."

The meeting also offered Raymund a chance to speak about Tech Data and the state of the industry.

One topic raised was the recent issue of both Merisel and Ingram Micro transferring Canadian management to senior continent-wide positions. As Reid said, "They're shipping the Canadians south as fast as we can build them up here."

"I was going to ask you (Rick) when you were going down, but Néstor's already come from abroad," replied Raymund, referring to Tech Data's new president of the Americas Néstor Cano. Cano, who was on his first visit to Canada to attend the Vendor Summit, was promoted from his former position, vice-president of U.S. sales and marketing. Prior to that, he spent 10 years as managing director of the company's Computer 2000 unit in Spain and Portugal.

Cano wondered aloud if it was a coincidence, or if coordinating multilingual markets like Canada with its French/English split, and Spain and Portugal with their Spanish and Portuguese (not to mention regional dialects), tends to build hardier, more effective managers.

Raymund also offered insights into the state of the distribution business at the turn of the millennium. One of the fields in which he says he expects to see growth is back-end customer order fulfillment by distribution companies, and an increase in the use of such services by Web-based front door VARs. To that end, Tech Data is already offering VARs the option of having orders shipped directly to customers with customized packing lists and shipping labels bearing the VAR's name and logo.

In another move to keep up with the changing nature of the business, Tech Data's configuration services in the United States are working on making systems with Linux pre-installed available to VARs without the experience or resources to configure boxes for customers who ask for Linux. There is no plan to offer current services in Canada yet, though.

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