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BULLETIN
14
Hollis appoints
commercial director
Hollis Office Solutions, a Shropshire-based
provider of document management, printing
and scanning solutions, has appointed Adele
Nightingale as Commercial Director.
In her new role, Adele will be responsible for
developing relationships with new and existing
customers and promoting the company’s full range of
document management and IT infrastructure solutions.
Adele was previously managing director of
industrial battery supplier Midac UK Ltd. During her
time with Midac, turnover went up from £400,000 to
£6 million.
New face to drive growth
IT industry trade association CompTIA has appointed Estelle Johannes as its new UK Director of Member
Communities. In this new role, Johannes plans to expand the UK Channel membership, ensure that
CompTIA events and meetings are of value to attendees and recruit more members in central and
northern Europe and emerging markets.
OKI Europe is strengthening its channel
proposition with the appointment of
a new VP for channel and distribution
and the launch of an online hub offering
information and training on OKI products.
Thomas Seeber, VP for channel and
distribution, joins OKI Europe from Matica
Technologies, where he was VP Global Sales,
Printer Division. Previous to that, he held senior
roles at Samsung Electronics and Lexmark
International.
The online OKI Academy provides partners
with information, support and interactive
training. Registered users can access online
training courses on business and industry-
specific
solutions and
complete
them at their
own pace on
a desktop
PC, tablet or
smartphone.
When
a partner
completes an assessment, they receive a
downloadable certificate and an ‘OKI Academy
Trained’ badge for use on their website or social
media profile.
New channel sales director for HP UK
Paul Boshoff has replaced Damian Cusick as Commercial Channel Sales Director of
the HP Printing & Personal Systems Group (PPS) in the UK & Ireland. After HP splits
in two at the end of this year, he will lead the commercial channel team in HP Inc..
Boshoff was previously General Manager of HP’s PPS business in New Zealand and General
Manager of HP’s Personal Systems Group in his native South Africa.
UTAX (UK) Ltd has recruited an
additional seven people to its technical
and sales teams, bringing the UK
headcount to 50.
The Direct Service team has four new
members: field technicians Matthew Clark and
Andrew Lock, for the South-East and North
respectively; and trainee IT support technicians
James Lawton, who will be based at UTAX’s
Shrivenham HQ, and Sam Palmer, who will
be responsible for answering customers’ IT
queries and monitoring the UTAX UFleet
software system.
Other new appointments include Andy Lees,
Professional Services Manager for the North;
Phil Russell, Southern Technical Manager; and
John Norris, Area Sales Manager responsible
for developing and supporting the UTAX dealer
channel in the South of England.
UTAX (UK) increases headcount to 50
New risk to small businesses
by Andy Milsom,
Head of Partner
Training and
Development,
BNP Paribas
Leasing Solutions
Since the near collapse
of the world’s financial
system in 2008, banks
have been heavily
regulated in an effort
to ensure that in future
they have sufficient
cash in reserve to
survive another serious
economic downturn, without being supported
by the tax payer.
The detail is technical, but in simplistic terms,
the rules are decided by a panel of international
professional economists under the guise of the Basel
Committee on Banking Supervision. The current rules
(set by the Basel 3 Agreement) dictate that a certain
percentage of all money lent by a bank is held in
reserve purely to offset risk of default.
To meet existing rules, banks have had to limit the
size of their loan books and charge a premium for any
lending that they have undertaken. This is one reason
why the record low interest rates set by the central
banks over recent years have not been fully reflected
in the cost of loans to individuals and businesses.
According to at least one national newspaper,
The British Bankers Association (BBA), a lobby
group composed of UK banks, is now concerned
that proposed changes to the current rules might
make it increasingly difficult for small businesses to
get the loans they need to expand. In particular, it
believes that a ‘Basel’ demand that banks set aside
an increased amount of capital on loans to small
businesses – potentially treble the amount that
currently applies – would severely restrict the flow of
funds to this sector.
Perversely, the changes being discussed might
require banks to hold a lower capital reserve for loans
to ‘start up’ businesses than are being proposed
for established SMEs. This proposal is also being
challenged by the BBA whose experience suggests the
risk of business failure is significantly greater in new
rather than established businesses.
Clearly, at this stage in the fragile economic
recovery, tighter rules that limit the flow of much
needed credit and result in a higher cost of debt
finance to small businesses would represent a real risk.
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