Family first for Renaissance’s Bronwyn Sinclair

Chief distribution officer opted for technology instead of FMCG

By Hamish Barwick, Auckland | Monday, 17 May 2010
“It has been an interesting start to the year having a brand new CEO [Richard Webb] and he is having a good look at the business and the ways we can change to be aligned for the goals we want to reach.”

She says Renaissance had reached a point where it had separate teams across the business, which detracted from the way the company related with the channel.

“If a reseller wanted to deal with us on the Apple side of things, the company would deal with one team who did everything to do with Apple. And if it was networking and security, there was another team to deal with.”

She says this meant the teams didn’t necessarily work together, a problem exacerbated by the fact staff were located in different buildings.

“If you were a reseller who wanted to buy more than one type of product, we weren’t the easiest company to deal with.”

She says the new structure is more streamlined, as the company operates as one team.

“Our sales team is empowered to sell across the business instead of just in the silo that they work within. From that point of view, we are trying to think of how people want to engage with us and set up a structure that supports that.”

Sinclair has made the most of the opportunity to meet with the distributor’s resellers. “We’ve travelled to Christchurch and Wellington for reseller seminars and I’m setting up meetings of my own.”

Apple’s gadgets are another part of the reason Sinclair has stayed in IT for more than 15 years. “They continue to bring out some amazing products and I have good relationships with the people in the Apple office.”

The gadget she is most looking forward to is the arrival of the iPad. “The level of interest in that right now is amazing, but at this stage we are just waiting for Apple to announce what their plans are for New Zealand.”

Over the years working in IT Sinclair has noticed significant changes in the distribution landscape.

“When I started at Renaissance there were quite a few distributors and they went through a phase of converging and merging. Then we had large distributors in the early 2000s and in recent years there have been smaller distributors popping up as well. It is interesting to see the process happen and who knows how that is going to pan out.

“Ultimately our customers will decide what they want in terms of distribution in New Zealand and, hopefully, Renaissance will be delivering a level of service that means we will be one they choose to deal with.”