News
German buying group set to invade UK channel
Ben Furfie Sep 1 2008, 10:11am
'Game changing' trade organisation to dramatically shake up channel with major financial clout
A new buying group has entered the fray, headed up by PCA chairman Derek Jones, who told PC Retail that it is unlike any organisation in the UK channel today.
Synaxon UK is part of Synaxon PLC, a German based buying group possessing what Jones describes as game changing 'financial clout'.
And while the UK wing is very much still in the process of setting itself up – with Jones revealing it will be sending out details to PCA reseller and retail members later this month – it has already sent a clear signal to the other buying groups in the channel such as Brigantia and NBG that it means business by becoming a major sponsor of the trade association.
"Synaxon has demonstrated over many years just how a successful partner organisation should be run, to the extent that it is now keen to extend that model into the UK, which quite frankly hasn’t seen anything like this ever before." Jones described many of the benefits of the organisation, including its real time stock procurement platform EGIS.
Foreshadowing its impact on the UK channel, Jones revealed that the system currently has 3,000 dealer users in Germany with access to over 12,000 products from 111 distributors.
However, its financial strength won't just have an impact on the channel in terms of its buying strength, as Jones explains: "For the PCA to be able to do all the things that I and the directors want it to be able to do, it needs a major funding boost, and Synaxon provides that."
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Comments
“Brigantia”
Posted: Sep 1, 1:01pm
Can't imagine Brigantia are going to be too pleased about this...
“Re: Brigantia”
Posted by: Clive - Sep 1, 5:30pm
Brigantia has never provided any real value, let's hope Synaxon will.
“Re: Brigantia”
Posted by: Norman-Ellis - Sep 1, 5:40pm
I can't imagine Brigantia will be bothered. Why should they be.
I am a Brigantia member, and there is more to it than just getting good deals with distributors, we are a community and meet up once or twice every year, and communicatesupport each other via the forum.
I Left the PCA last year, because I thought they were becoming too commercial. Is the PCA a trade association or a buying group? Hard to tell these days.
“Re: Re: Brigantia”
Posted by: Hendy Armstrong - Sep 3, 10:02am
I wish Derek well. Synaxon doesn't look like the innovative model it's projected to be. Admittedly it does seem to have financial resources to help with lift-off. However, I don't think that NBG, Brigantia and Integra will be quaking in their boots.
Brigantia provides good value to it's members and I'm sure Integra and NBG members feel the same about theirs.
However, I would suggest that there seems to be a serious conflict of interest growing within what seems to now be a tri-partite strategic alliance - The PCA, FixITlocal, Synaxon and inter-linked directorships. Whether this is to the detriment of some PCA members is a question others who are members may feel like asking. The PCA has grown it's membership through long hard years but any association should provide benefit to all members without discrimination. This is now not the case. It is very wrong, in my humble view, to allow, and arguably be complicit in, one member (Fixitlocal) disrespecting other members business models AND making available support resources to the detriment of some of it's other members.
“Ebuyer, Dabs, etc”
Posted by: Unhappy Indie - Sep 4, 6:01pm
Um, excuse me for being dumb, but doesn't ebuyer offer this multi distie/manufactuer service to anyone that wants it? They have deals with many of the top disties including ingram and c2k. (Not sure if they still do at time of writing but they have had in the past)
With ebuyer simply select the parts you want and they arrive from a variety of disites either the next day or within a few days. You can even get free delivery sometimes.
Why order from 100 places when you can order from one?
Prices are competitive too.
Not impressed with customer service, but they seem to be have been working hard on that too recently.
Er and don't Dabs do something similar too? No free delivery, but customer support is much better though on things like returns etc.
The big problem with this business model is that not only do they cater for me, also for my customers - and my customers are aware of these sites. It's all about volume and scale and I can't see any buying group ever matching the volume that ebuyer etc can do.