After three decades in IT distribution — including 20 years at Arrow Electronics Computing Solutions — Anthony Dobson has seen technology cycles come and go. But as AI dominates the current narrative, his concern is less about the speed of innovation than how the industry frames it.
“There’s always lots of buzzwords and adjectives — you’ve got to go faster, you’ve got to go quicker, you’re missing out,” said Dobson, who’s currently regional director for U.K. and Ireland at Arrow ECS. “It’s all about AI.”
But stepping back, he said, the fundamentals have not changed.
“Sales 101 is: are you addressing a customer need or outcome? That’s the reality. AI is not the destination. It’s a game-changing enabler,” he said.
What matters is how technology helps customers deal with transformation, resilience and risk.
“Today is not just about AI. It’s about everything to do with how we help them get through change,” Dobson said.
From boxes to outcomes
Dobson sees distributors as agents of change, echoing the title of an event Arrow hosted for partners last month in London. He said distribution’s purpose is to enable partners and vendors to become agents of change for customers.
“My job is not just to supply equipment. It’s to help [customers] and help the channel through that transformation,” he said. “The danger is becoming just a tactical supplier.”
Dobson does not dismiss traditional distribution, however.
“The ability to price stock, have expertise around it and be able to deliver a solution — that is still vital,” he said.
But buying behavior has shifted. Customers are moving from capex to opex, and from commercial-led decisions to risk-led ones.
“The buying decisions are changing. Partners have got to respond in the same way,” he said.
Cloud marketplaces also inevitably raise fears of disintermediation, but Dobson takes a measured view.
“Yes, there will be some impact,” he said. “Customers are very switched on to the efficiencies.”
The opportunity for distributors is in helping partners navigate options.
“It’s about providing choice,” he said, and embracing programs that keep distribution relevant while maintaining alliances with hyperscalers like Microsoft and AWS. In November, Microsoft named Arrow its Distributor Partner of the Year.
Arrow’s ECS unit grew its sales 27% year over year in its Q3 ended Sept. 27, with 34% EMEA offset by a 1% Americas decline.
A midmarket strategy
Vendors are increasingly focusing on large partners and enterprise customers, pushing smaller partners into distribution-managed models.
“That’s all well and good. That’s a great opportunity,” he said, pointing to the midmarket as an emerging opportunity for distributors.
Arrow’s response has been to invest in teams and platforms that help those partners scale without heavy upfront investment.
“We can offer things they can’t afford to build themselves,” said Dobson, pointing to white-labeled cloud platforms and complementary services.
The biggest challenges ahead all boil down to doing more with less, he said.
One takeaway from the recent Agents of Change event surprised Dobson. Partners told him they did not realize how much Arrow now does.
“For me, that was a learning,” he admitted. “We’ve got to make sure partners and our internal people fully understand the evolution we’re going through.”
