Brothwell: I want to take the business to new levels

Exertis Business’ newly appointed managing director Jamie Brothwell plans to double the business in the next five years

With ten years at the distribution giant already under her belt, Jamie Brothwell has ambitious plans for Exertis Business. In this Q&A, we hear about her plans for the next ten years, why DE&I and sustainability are a huge part of the future, and why she feels people are the most important part of the business.

CRN: What does it mean to you to get this role?

JB: It is what I’ve worked for my entire career. My ambition has always been to get to a position like this to be able to influence the culture positively and create the type of business that I want to work for. In the last ten years, being part of the cultural journey to get to where we are today makes me really proud.

CRN: What will you bring to this role?

JB: My style is about collaboration, and if I look at my successes at Exertis from the starting point - when I joined, print was 80 per cent retail fulfilment - I created the office automation copier business which is the most flexible part of print and a seismic shift from box-shifting to value-added selling. I owned the whole sales and commercial channel which was a new thing for Exertis. Through my career I have been able to shape print, accessories, peripherals, homebrands and latterly AV. I’ve owned the whole piece.

If we look at the four core specialisms [of Exertis Business] we have AV, print, mobile and components, and we have IT Solutions which is a development area for us. All these areas are in growth and we will be putting more focus into those four areas, seeing how we can win and how we can take them to new levels.

CRN: What have been the first things you have done since taking the role and what are your plans going foward?

JB: Effectively bring everyone together in the specialisms, We‘ve run workshops around what we want to be, how do we work together, what is the moonshot?

I talk to people, everybody is a stakeholder in our business. It is not about me telling people the direction of travel, it is about how we collaboratively create that. We have lots of people with extensive experience and who have been here a long time. They know that they are doing. I am looking to bring all the different departments together and shape the pillars as singular businesses, effectively so we become a collection of specialists under Exertis Business.

I have lots of plans - but essentially, I want to double the business in the next five years. I really want to take it to new levels and want the next 10 years to be focused on high performance - how do we be the very best in the fields in which we operate?

CRN: How has distribution and Exertis changed over the years?

JB: I think if we look at distribution over last 20 years it has become predominantly a stock out model - resellers are more reliant on distributors than ever. Credit lines are important - one area where we have been able to add value is to bring new lines of credit to the business.

But it is also about doing the simple things well - getting a box there the next day for example.

Because of our diverse portfolio of products, it lends itself to our partners becoming more sustainable. We can deliver everything, and resellers can get five specialisms that they would have had to go to multiple distributors for in the past, so we can consolidate that sale.

Then, focusing on services. How do we add value? How do we become an extension of the customer? We can be an extension of their business - we have a 24/7/365 service centre in Basingstoke, we have nationwide engineers, we have an amazing service around mobile device management. We do amazing things that nobody knows about. A big part of our journey is packaging up the great things we do and taking them out to market as saleable services.

CRN: Sustainability - how important is that to you and Exertis?

JB: Crucial. One of my phrases is the art of success is making everything important to someone. So much of the tender responses that resellers place is a balance to DE&I and Sustainability.

At Exertis, we have an individual that owns DEI as their job. We have a team of eight dedicated to sustainability. We are looking to work proactively with vendors and customers around this and share best practice. How do we share our learnings? We have solar energy systems , LED lighting, an EV fleet. We are Focusing on how we tackle deliveries and work with vendors to consolidate deliveries. We have very aggressive targets and it is really core that we are on top of these things.

How about DEI?

We are doing so many great things. DEI is not an initiative - it is way of life at Exertis.

We are rolling out allyship-in-a-box training across our reseller portfolio and working with resellers to help train their staff on allyship. We have come a long way since 2020 and have accelerated significantly to become a pioneering leader in DEI in the industry.

CRN: DEI - do you think things are changing?

I think we have a long way to go. There is a lot of talk but less action. However people have already said to me how amazing it is to have somebody like me at the top of an organisation. If you want to drive change, people like me need to be championed to show that you can be different and win. I’ve had to fight against the odds to get where I am. I bet nobody would have put a pound of their money on me being where I am now, five or six years ago.

I have done it through hard work, determination, perseverance, strong internal believe, but also importantly, being very good at what I do. I’ve produced strong results. We had a record year last year with AV. My AV business also scored 86 per cent in our employee survey score - the UK average is 66 per cent. I’m very much about people and culture. The last thing in the world I want to be thought of is a token, but you can’t argue with my results.

CRN: Are there any new vendors that you want to work with?

JB: We have some new ones coming but it is kind of sensitive at the moment. We are looking at how do we expand our vendor portfolio in solution-led supporting brands that drive specialism within the pillars. We have some big announcements to come.

People are knocking on our door and our customers are recommending us to new vendors, because customers want to buy more from us. There is no better recommendation than that.

CRN: What would your message be to people who are at the start of their career or who are struggling to believe in themselves?

Effectively,’ I would say ‘back yourself’. Believe in yourself. No-one else has to believe in your goals other than you. If they can’t see that it is their failing. You must feel that you are in an environment where you can grow and have people around you that you can learn from. Make it happen for yourself. If I look at the roles I’ve had, I’ve pretty much created them - gone to management, created a plan and gone for it. I think having the vision and foresight to see opportunities, but also doing what you say you are going to do. Its amazing how often people don’t. That is what you have to do.

I’m very proud of what we have done and proud to be on this journey and I’m excited for what the future holds. The amazing thing about working for this organisation - it is backed by a FTSE 100 business but we are trusted to run the business on our own. It is very entrepreneurial and exciting. I want to achieve great things in the next 10 years and look back and say, ‘we created the best specialist distributor in the UK’.

I’m me and I am how I am. I wanted to be a somebody and I wanted to be someone who leaves a legacy in the industry. I like to think I’m there or thereabouts, but still have more to do.