ScanSource Europe Partner Tour reports success

The first two dates of the ScanSource Europe Partner Tour proved a huge success, with more than 150 resellers present at each location.

After the inaugural Benelux event on May 14, the tour moved on to the UK on May 21.

ScanSource was joined on the tour by a wide selection of its vendor partners: Datalogic Mobile, Datalogic Scanning, Datamax / O’Neil, Elo, Honeywell (formerly Hand Held Products), IBM, Intermec, Metrologic, Motorola, NCR, Printronix, Seagull Scientific, Socket, Zebra and Zebra Card. Local vendor representatives were on hand to answer resellers’ questions and to demonstrate working solutions.

As well as vendor booths, the Partner Tour also featured a special software area, where software partners could demonstrate their solutions. Resellers were invited to bring along their sales teams, who received strategic sales training from well-known trainers.

The Partner Tour marks a change in strategy for ScanSource, according to managing director Xavier Cartiaux: ‘Instead of doing lots of smaller single vendor events in each territory, we decided to do one large event with all our vendors under one roof. This makes going to an event much more efficient for our resellers, as they only have to be out of the office for one day.’

The events closed with an evening activity, with entertainment and lots of networking opportunities. ‘It was basically a one day all-encompassing event for the local market,’ explained Emma Hibbard, ScanSource Europe’s sales manager for the UK and Ireland. ‘We gave resellers the chance to network with all of their most significant channel contacts – local vendor representatives, ISVs, ScanSource management and local account managers – at the same time. And the response that we got shows resellers really valued the opportunity. We’re already planning the next UK event.’

David Mahoney, director and general manager of reseller Sanderson RBS was quick to praise the event: ‘Yet again ScanSource demonstrated their commitments to their vendors and ISVs by giving us a forum to discuss the market, technological advances and mutually beneficial opportunities, in addition to maintaining the network of contacts that have been built over several years. The value of these events is clearly recognized by the number of companies wanting to exhibit and attend.’

After the success of the first events, the Partner Tour continues in France and Germany in October. Dates and locations will be confirmed soon – and the Partner Tour will stop at additional locations in the future. To keep up to date, resellers should check the Partner Tour website, www.partnertour.eu.