Market Leader Rebrands as SDG (Specialist Distribution Group)

July 7, 2010 - PRLog -- With demand for solution rich propositions driving the market, SCH Distribution has re-branded as SDG (The Specialist Distribution Group).
Following a series of acquisitions, particularly over the last two years, the move aims to complement and enhance the specialist capabilities of these businesses, while at the same time making it easier for resellers to access solutions for themselves and their customers from one route.
The new identity is part of an evolving strategy to simplify engagement, enabling resellers to access and vendors to leverage the scope and scale of SDG’s capabilities and specialisations - locally, nationally and internationally.
It underlines the company’s long standing strategy to extend and enrich the solutions and services it delivers to the full spectrum of resellers. The re-branding draws together SDG's view that rapidly evolving technologies are driving the market and simplifies access to best of breed solutions and services.
Paul Eccleston, who heads up SDG in the UK, said:  “The demands of end users on both resellers and vendors have changed in the last five years and continue to change.  Today, it is about selling solutions that meet a customer’s business need - as opposed to selling products - and, in the current climate, I expect this trend to accelerate.  In parallel, IT infrastructures are becoming increasingly complicated and this is challenging resellers to encompass all that complexity, understand their customers’ needs and deliver back a solution. More than ever resellers need distributors who can give them all the benefits of specialisation around these technologies and help them deliver solutions.
"We are building our solution capabilities to complement the complete spectrum of resellers, from the smallest resellers looking after regional and local SMEs to national VARs and SIs.    Our strategy is all about making it easy for them to deliver best of breed solutions to their customers and helping them to be a specialist in every element of infrastructure.  They need a distributor who can complement them and add specialist resource, capability and capacity so they can deliver the right solution - as and when the end customer demands it.  We achieve this uniquely by working for them and with them.”
The SDG re-branding follows a raft of recent acquisition activity: in July 2009, the distribution group acquired IQ Sys - the UK market leader with Citrix.  This came less than a year after the purchase of Interface Solutions, formally known as ISI, the specialist distributor for IBM, Lenovo and Sun.
A number of recent awards highlight the breadth of expertise and specialisation: in December 2009, ‘VMware Distributor of the Year’ and November 2009 ‘Best Citrix Distributor, UK / Ire / SA’, for the fourth year running.
Paul Eccleston added: “As end users need to increase their agility, flexibility and cost effectiveness, resellers are under pressure to respond by providing rapid solutions to these needs whilst maintaining profitability. The challenge for distribution in enabling them to achieve this is highlighted by the explosion of interest in ‘cloud services’. Today, resellers are required to be able to consult with customers around their business issues as they relate to the cloud, and to have the ability to deliver appropriate services and solutions. This means working in collaboration with partners, and indeed, we are already delivering partner based cloud services to resellers today.”

- ENDS -

For further information:

Judy Groves
SCH Group Marketing Director
Direct:   +44 (0)121 766 2580
Fax:       +44 (0) 121 766 2589
Mobile:  +44 (0) 7976 014 100
Email:     judy.groves@sch-group.com

# # #

SDG is THE specialist distribution group.

Through our leading distribution group brands you will be able to prove your proposition, finance it, market effectively, train your delivery team and partner with the world’s best of breed vendors and authors.

http://www.sdgroup.eu.com/