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Company focus on: Sewell Direct

 

With a foot in two camps, Sewell Direct can neither be classed as a pure distributor nor a software development company. However, the two disciplines complement each other, as we find out below.


Sewell Direct’s origins can be traced back to 1983, when David Sewell started a software company called Paragon Computer Consultants. He developed a software suite called Fastlynx, which was subsequently purchased by Microsoft, but he retained a license to sell the software separately from Windows and it is still part of the company’s offering today. However, Fastlynx now accounts for less than 1% of sales, as the company has long since diversified into other areas.

Cameron Postelwait, marketing director at Sewell Direct explains the company’s next steps: “Along with software, the company began to sell hardware and so our hardware connectivity business was born.” Sewell has significantly expanded its remit and added cables, connectors, and a vast array of other connectivity hardware products to its inventory. With a change in business focus, the company name has also changed to Sewell Development Corporation, which does business as Sewell Direct.

Today, the company’s roots remain in the form of a team of developers that support the hardware side of the business and build all Sewell’s front and back office systems from scratch. Notes Postelwait: “In addition to creating the entire stock/inventory system, website, intranet, etc., they also create tools for our employees to do our jobs better and more efficiently – such as software to display statistics on dashboards all over the office and warehouse – and even tools to help us understand where to put our marketing resources. These tools are mature enough to be marketed themselves and for that reason I would definitely consider ourselves a technology company first and foremost, and a distributor second.”

Sewell CAN do


Asked how Sewell Direct first got involvedwith CAN, Postelwait recounts: “When we started to research the CAN market, we decided that we already had a large database of various integrators and contractors that purchase significant quantities of RS232/422/485 and IEEE488 type products and that it would be worth us giving the market a shot. Sewell has a good relationship with a number of procurement agencies that have historically purchased similar items from us and so we figured we’d get these products in front of them to see if they had demand.” It is a strategy that has apparently proven successful.

A portfolio of unique products and the low saturation of the CAN market initially attracted Sewell Direct to get in contact with Kvaser and become a QSR. Postelwait adds: “Kvaser also steps out of our way and allows us to market these products freely without channel conflict, which is perhaps one of the biggest factors we consider when we decide to spend our own resources to promote another brand.”

Talking of promotional spend, approximately 15% of Sewell’s total revenues are spent on marketing, mostly on the promotion of Sewell’s own brand. Postelwait notes that: “The best bang for our buck is to simply visit our biggest customers and introduce them to our new products.” However, the company also spends ‘considerable resources’ on web marketing, including SEO and pay-per-click marketing, resulting in ‘the next biggest area of success,’ according to Postelwait.

Becoming a knowledge hub


Over the years, one of the simplest ways in which Sewell Direct has built its reputation and distinguished itself from other distributors is by becoming a source of trusted advice and information for customers. Central to this effort are Sewell’s ‘How to’ guides, which aim to provide readers with a simple walk through topics ranging from how to choose between banana plugs to an explanation of the different video interfaces and signal types.

Lately though, video has become a favourite marketing tool for Sewell. Postelwait explains: “Videos have historically served more of a pragmatic/tutorial function for us but recently we got a huge positive response from a marketing video that we created. The tutorial videos typically lasted five times longer and addressed issues such as unboxing, the box contents and connection issues. Our newest marketing videos are shorter and have a sense of humour.  Our strategy has become to release these videos together with a press release, mainly because journalists aren’t the most tech-savvy, so the video helps them grasp the concept instantly.”

Another important area of investment for Sewell is in its technical support team. Recounts Postelwait: “We have tier-one support for our customers, meaning we have real technicians that can be reached immediately by phone, email, online chat and Twitter during business hours.” Notably, he says that most support enquiries come via email, though online chat is proving popular. Very few enquiries are made by phone these days, and none come through Twitter, as yet.

Talking about enquiries related to Kvaser, Postelwait notes: “Typically, the biggest pre-sales questions have to do with package contents or other simple questions that we can answer by consulting the product’s manual. Sewell’s technical manager says that Kvaser customers typically know what unit they want before they talk to us.”

Sewell Direct keeps stock of the most Kvaser popular products. Customers tend to find the products they need using the website’s search facility, or they can consult the drop-down ‘Products’ menu, where they'll find Kvaser's portfolio under the ‘USB to everything’ heading.

For more information, please visit sewelldirect.com. To contact the company, please send an email to Cameron Postelwait at cameron@sewelldirect.com