D&H Canada has continued to grow under the watchful eye of Tobin. In 2016, the distributor achieved 26 per cent average growth overall year-over-year, which exponentially outpaced the performance of 2-tiered distribution in Canada as measured by research firm the NPD Group.
Tobin strongly believes Canada is not over-distributed. “If Canada was truly over-distributed, then why is there a lack of credit in the channel? And, a lack of training too. If it’s just pick, pack, and ship, then yes maybe you would need just one, but it comes down to driving value and engaging with customers, educating them on products, platforms, and support programs. I do not believe we are over-distributed,” Tobin said.
To his point, D&H Canada in 2016 injected an incremental $80 million in annual credit capacity to hundreds of qualified SMB resellers.
Tobin said he saw a problem with credit capacity in the channel and the results of this action turned into a huge receivables gain for the distributor. “The word spread and when was the last time you got good news from the credit department?”
Tobin did a lot of outreach in 2016 by adding a series of in-depth Cisco SMB technology “Roadshow” tours for resellers in nine cities throughout Canada.
D&H also conducted two major trade events involving close to 85 vendor partners and 600 reseller/dealer customers in the Toronto and Montreal areas, including augmented vendor participation.
