To 2021…and beyond!

Hello everyone,

There is no doubt 2020 will be memorialized as a very challenging and difficult year for everyone for countless reasons.

I am getting more phone calls now from American Airlines wanting to know where I am and when I will be back, than I used to get from my mom wanting to know where in the world I currently was.

The one thing however, that has remained constant is that it is impossible to have a detailed IT conversation that doesn’t include the requirement for and challenges of a global delivery component. To further this point, Dino mentioned in his welcome video that after 12 years, I made the difficult decision to leave Ingram Micro for the opportunity to lead the Viadex Global Partner Services team. A significant consideration in this decision was the opportunity to further develop the reach of Viadex to address the global market requirements of our partners and their customers into some of the most remote and challenging countries. We rose to the challenge and, in just the past 90 days, we have delivered IT projects into: Angola, Uzbekistan, Ukraine, Serbia, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Mauritius and Pakistan to highlight a few of the more unique locations we are facilitating. We currently have operating capabilities in over 190 countries and this continues to increase as our global footprint expands, with an additional 20 countries on our current development list.

Whilst new territories are critical for our partners growth and provision, we have listened to your feedback and also spent the last year enhancing our existing investments in local “in country” capabilities, compliance, delivery and fulfilment options. Since the beginning of the year, we have delivered over 3,000 project deployments into 50+ countries. We have focused on countries that are important to you and most notably will have a fully operational, registered tax entity in Mexico by the end of the year. We have expedited our investments in Mexico in response to partner demand and accelerated growth in the region. This investment will allow us to more cost effectively fulfil our partners’ requirements for local procurement, invoicing, on-site professional services and most importantly efficient VAT treatment and reclamation. Additionally, we will be able to leverage existing regional trade agreements such as “NTFTA” and “CUSMA”.

We continue to work closely with our partner community and in our commitment to you, and as a private entity have the ability to remain agile and responsive dedicating resource and investment into the countries where you see demand and opportunity. 2021 will bring more announcements specific to our sustained investment into legal entity expansion, but I’d like to encourage you to engage with us on your business strategy and growth objectives so we can ensure an open and transparent relationship with valuable services based on tangible needs.

Pre-COVID I used to sit together with most of you in your offices developing solutions to the challenges and opportunities presented, but with the limitations of COVID we, like many others, have shifted to a video conference format which in my opinion will never replace the face-to-face relationships and camaraderie we have developed over the years.

Because we are currently unable to sit face to face and enjoy an extended conversation over coffee, which I have to admit I miss more than I ever could have imagined, we are trying something new to enhance communication with our partners in the form of a quarterly newsletter and no doubt, like everything else, we will learn and improve the content as we evolve into 2021, so we welcome your feedback and suggestions for future content.

I wish you a happy and healthy holiday season, enjoying time with family and friends, and I have every intention of seeing you all again in your home countries in early 2021.

Best regards
Steve