Longtime also-ran in Europe’s corporate PC marketplace, Gateway Europe yesterday launched a new business model in partnership with London, UK-based Computacenter, which it claims will fundamentally improve its corporate sales performance in several key European markets, including the UK, Germany, France and the Benelux countries.
Gateway’s new Service-Direct model represents a significant investment for both companies according to Gateway’s UK field sales director, Richard Millar, but it is expected to recoup this investment quickly. The new approach, which offers a combination of build-to-order provisioning, with a services driven sales channel, is claimed to offer customers the best of both worlds. A sophisticated planning and implementation service, coupled to a supply chain that is not blocked by inventory, and which is always able to provide the very latest technology. Customers will get the best priced, most current available product. They will always be able to buy today’s technology immediately, and at today’s prices, said Millar.
He said that Gateway confidently expects the new business model to lift its European market share into the top five of positions of the supplier’s league, something it has never achieved on the continent, despite reaching those heights on the global stage. If the Service-Direct approach works in Europe, it is likely that it will also be rolled out in the US and the rest of the world, Millar said.
