Firm vows to educate the market on its breadth of services as part of brand refresh; Admits UK perception needed improving following the purchase of BrightPoint in 2012
Ingram Micro has vowed to be more vocal in the B2B market – as it aims to generate new business opportunities and better educate the channel on its products and services.
The firm, which claims to be “world leader” in technology and supply chain services (IT, cloud, mobility and logistics), refreshed its branding last week across its 39 markets covering six continents.
The new branding included a completely new design, which also sees the word Mobility – introduced 16 months ago following its purchase of BrightPoint in 2012 for £532 million – dropped.
According to Ingram Micro vice president global vendor and partner relations Fergal Donovan (pictured), who was speaking exclusively to Mobile News, the brand refresh is part of a deep evolution of the business following a series of acquisitions, boosting both portfolio and skillset.
Donovan, who has been with Ingram Micro and formerly BrightPoint for more than four years, said the integration processes have been completed and it’s now time to let people, both new and existing, know what it has to offer the market.
“We’ve potentially been guilty in the past of not talking loud enough and communicating clearly enough about what we do,” said Donovan.
“It was clear to me that we needed to improve our messaging in the market and say what exactly it is that we do. When I’m talking to customers it’s clear that there’s a lot of stuff they are not aware of. For me, we need to improve that and we will do that as part of the evolving process around the rebrand.
“We want to make sure we talk more often, talk louder and that the market understands who we are, what we do, and who we do it with to improve our perception in the market.”
He continued: “We believe the timing is right for a change. On the back of the acquisitions we have brought in a lot of services, capability and increased the amount of offerings we have for our customers.
“Now we have gone through the integration phase, we are in a position to relaunch and reposition ourselves and educate our customers. It’s time now for the organisation to evolve behind a new stand and communicate that to market strategy. It’s a clear reposition for us.”
Ingram Micro chief executive Alain Monié echoed Donovan’s comments, claiming the redesign marks an evolution of the 35 years of the firm’s history and portrays an identity that is both simple to understand as well as modern.
“This is more than a logo change; we view this brand refresh as an investment in our future,” he said.
“Ingram Micro has made bold new moves with recent acquisitions, establishing global business units and developing a more global and customer-centric mindset. Refreshing and repositioning the Ingram Micro brand is a natural next step in our company’s growth and success.
“It signals our evolution from a distribution powerhouse to the world leader in technology and supply chain services.
“We want to present an identity that is simple, modern and represents who we are. We have the capabilities, insight and experience to help our partners – and their customers – understand, acquire and use technology to be more competitive.”
Convergence
Donovan added the firm, which had a global turnover of more than £25 billion (2013), will look to increase its efforts in helping resellers cross-sell services, such as mobile dealers pushing into IT and vice versa. He claims the integration of BrightPoint is now fully complete and that expertise between the merged teams has provided the company with a strong skillset to take to the market.
“Clearly one of the major reasonings behind the purchase of BrightPoint was to enable that conversation. Obviously th industry is moving that [convergence] way and we want to take our partners on that journey and help them make their lives easier in terms of access to a greater breadth of portfolio. We are perfectly placed and will be louder in that space going forward.
“There is a very high level of interaction between our teams and we have identified where we can be strong together and how our customers will benefit from that. Together it’s a very strong combination and very strong offering.”