With today’s rising costs and increasing economic pressure, IT-resellers face several challenges when providing products, value-added services and solutions to their clients. From intense competition to rapid technological changes, resellers must navigate a complex environment to stay relevant and competitive.

We’ve spoken to Anthony Parrott, Netset’s UK Country Manager, and Jens Rosberg, the founder of Netset and newly appointed Head of International Sales, about the demands facing IT-resellers. They told us about a market in the midst of change, a rising demand for digitisation to streamline procurement and how IT-resellers can make sure their organisation is ready for the future.

An evolving culture and new ways of working

Many resellers already work mostly digital. Most of them have a web shop and ways of displaying their products and making simple orders online. However, when it comes to large and complex procurement orders, there’s still a lot of manual labour involved.

“It’s common to want to have personal contact with each transaction, via phone or email, but you can’t survive with that approach in the long run because the market is getting competitive, really competitive,” explains Jens Rosberg, Founder of Netset and Head of International Sales.

So, what’s the alternative? The simple answer is to move these complex procurement orders online and create automated processes that relieve the need of manual labour.

“The suppliers and distributors are aiming to get streamlined and to get their orders from resellers online, so the market is really driving towards becoming more digital,” says Jens.

A higher demand from customers to get online

The demand for digitised processes and the ability to place larger orders online are coming from supplier and distributors. However, the main demand is coming straight from the end-customers.

“What we see most of the time is resellers getting requirements from their customers about wanting to place orders online and creating an automatic procurement process,” says Anthony Parrott, UK Country Manager, Netset.

Resellers listen to their customers and want to meet the needs they require, but resellers don’t necessarily have the tools to make it happen. Creating automated communication between end-customer, reseller and distributor with the right pricing, right orders and on-time delivery, is no easy feat.

“Resellers want to improve their processes and simplify everything from their customer’s point of view. But the complexities of making that happen for any individual business are very, very high,” says Anthony.

The benefits of creating digitised and automated processes

What to keep in mind is that creating online processes that enables correct, automated and streamlined orders is not only beneficial for the organisation, but it’s a necessity for survival. 

“For IT-resellers to maintain profitability, they need to be able to offer their end-customers an efficient way to make large orders. When we talk about procurement, that usually means large and complex ongoing orders from sizeable organisations or government entities. It’s imperative that these orders are priced correctly, placed correctly and obviously delivered correctly,” says Jens.

Online procurement allows processes to work without having personnel involved in every step. This increases the capacity to take on more customers whilst also saving resources.

“Allowing customers to place orders digitally and having the whole process (from order placement to delivered product) taken care of electronically, not only frees up time but also lowers transaction costs which lowers general costs,” says Anthony.

The risks of creating an online procurement system in-house

It’s sounds like a no-brainer, but there’s a reason why larger procurement orders are still being handled manually. Since the complexity is very high, most organisations have a hard time creating solutions that guarantee the functionalities they require.

“I think people underestimate the level of complexity and the level of investment that goes into not just building but maintaining a solution for advanced IT-procurement,” says Anthony.

Trying to develop an in-house solution can be costly, both timewise and financially, and should be considered as a high-risk-project.

“Just trying to comply with security needs and new threats coming up is really expensive and might still not give full protection in all aspects. In addition, most of the time you don’t know how a home-built solution is going to turn out or how it will be maintained in the long run,” says Jens.

Learn more about digital procurement in Netset’s webinar

Do you want to learn more about how online procurement processes looks like and how it can benefit you as an IT-reseller? Watch Netset’s webinar with Anthony Parrot and Jens Rosberg as speakers on-demand here.