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OFDA Magazine, March 2007

Q&A with Dave Brysch-President Channel Dynamix

How did Channel Dynamix get its start? My experience working in Fortune 500 companies was really not very fulfilling. My career was going well, and I was doing interesting and challenging things at places like Compaq and Office Depot but I just came to realize I didn't personally “matter” in such giant enterprises. In the early nineties, I left a much larger company to work at a Houston Steelcase Dealer. The enterprise was just the right size (about $100M per year in furniture & supplies), and I quickly learned what made the company tick. I was finally important to my employer's success. Plus, the industry was overflowing with technology challenges. I began to focus on what I viewed as an underserved sector: the office products distributor. There was an interesting dynamic: their big manufacturing partners and their large corporate clients both had resources, and Dealers were often left with the challenge of keeping up. I found this dynamic very interesting.

The dealership where I was working was sold off, and I decided to strike out on my own. The office supplies division was gobbled up by another corporate giant, and the furniture division was acquired by another Houston dealer. The two acquiring companies became my first two clients.

How has it grown/ changed since then? Originally CDX just focused on consulting with a few large dealerships. I didn't have much choice since it was just me. In 1999, Joe Alapat joined as a partner, and we began to focus on a couple of different verticals. We also noticed that the companies that were using our software solutions for large complex problems like resource scheduling, job costing, and E-Business began to look to us to provide practical everyday solutions for managing the network, PCs and phone systems. Over time, our focus shifted almost exclusively to consulting and services.

The company has literally grown one step at a time. Today, we have thirty employees, mostly in Houston, but also in Buenos Aires and the Philippines, serving customers all over the country.

How can dealers utilize Channel Dynamix offerings to their advantage? All of the solutions that Channel Dynamix offers are scalable. In many cases, we have acquired the staff of a client who wanted to get out of the IT business and focus on their core strengths. We also offer escalation solutions where we support the existing IT and E-Business staff at a dealership. Recently we announced our new Matrix for IT Remote Monitoring Solution. The Matrix can monitor any machine or piece of software in a dealer environment. It can “snapshot” or trend machine, network, and bandwidth usage, and it even allows us to resolve issues anywhere in the world from our headquarters in Houston.

What is next for Channel Dynamix? Channel Dynamix has always focused on providing services to large dealers. With our new Matrix solutions we are very well positioned to offer our service and expertise to any sized dealer. We are also beginning to offer Knowledge Management solutions for our customers. Imagine being able to “google” all the information on your company's network.

We'll also look to form more partnerships with software and technology providers like the one we have with Hedberg Data Systems. Hedberg is the de facto business system for Steelcase dealers worldwide. Our partnership with Hedberg has allowed us to present a more robust and comprehensive solution to our mutual customers while allowing us to individually focus on the things we do best.

We are excited about providing services to a much broader cross section of the industry.

What is next for the industry as a whole? More of the same: doing more with less. The pressure from shrinking margins has caused most dealers to think differently about fixed costs. Many small companies – not just dealers – have been slow to embrace a variable cost model of some sort or another. I think we'll begin to see more mature alternatives for reducing fixed cost. For example, dealers may need to consider a shared services approach to generic staff functions like IT, E-Business, and Design. It's inevitable.

Steelcase Blueshare Announcement: Matrix for IT & Matrix for Business released.
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