New venue, new focus

For 2014, TechTrade Live has moved from Citywest to a new venue, with a new design and focus. The Leopardstown Racecourse Pavilion is minutes from the M50 and the N11, with a high concentration of resellers in close proximity, and offers a bright, modern meeting environment.

Reflecting the one-on-one benefit of events like TechTrade Live to visitors and exhibitors alike, this new venue will create a more intimate environment that benefits all: an environment that is all about creating meeting points to start new relationships, to talk business, do deals, or simply to take the time that nobody seems to have these days and catch up over a coffee and a chat.

Reflecting the distributors’ unique role and importance in Ireland’s IT channel, this year we are also taking a different approach to our Distributor Hubs. Taking advantage of the layout of our new venue, we have created a limited number of larger Hub areas in a range of configurations, offering distributors the opportunity to partner with their key vendor partners in a distinct area, easily identified by our visiting resellers.

For example, Hub 1 offers a distributor the opportunity to own that area in partnership with a selection of their vendor partners. This can be branded by name(s) or by theme, and custom configured in a way that suits all. We believe this flexibility makes it even easier for all distributors and vendors to be involved, reflecting the ‘Partnerships for Success’ theme of this year’s event.

The vast majority of vendors have taken the decision not to try and cover all the parts of the market but to collaborate with other players in the supply chain because they are better at what they do and they can do it more cheaply and efficiently. Which is another reason why channel partners exist.

Billy MacInnes, Contributing Editor, TechTrade (Irish Computer), June 2014