Peter M. Roberts: President, chairman and CEO, Wanforce Technologies Corp.
By JEFF HARRINGTON
Published April 12, 2004
Q. How have you expanded from your beginnings as a reseller of Cisco hardware?
We sell anything that plugs in . . . printers, fax machines, work stations, routers, switches, voice gateways, voice-over-Internet protocol solutions, generators. We're selling 25 large diesel generators to the country of Iraq right now, to give you a for-instance.
Q. From the vantage point of your St. Louis headquarters, how does Tampa fit into your growth plans?
We had $20-million in revenue in 2003; we're going to $44-million this year (and) we're going to double every year until 2006.
Right now, we have 20 people in Tampa. . . . The Tampa team has turned out to be our best sales team, so we are paying a lot of attention to Florida right now. . . . I would like it to grow to a 50-person organization in the next six to eight months. We're in the process of opening an office in Miami (by) the third quarter.
Q. How does a relatively small operation compete with the giant computer resellers of the world, such as Tech Data Corp. in Clearwater?
Tech Data can't compete with our pricing even though they're a much bigger outfit. They're locked into discounts from the manufacturer. We're manufacturer-neutral.
When Tech Data wants special pricing approvals, they need a price deviation approved from Cisco. When you get to be the size of Tech Data, it's difficult to ask for price breaks every day. We don't necessarily need the relationship with the manufacturer. That's the difference.
