Underscoring its commitment to serve as a global, value-added distribution partner, Stampede convened its first Executive Vendor Summit on October 23–24 at the Tivoli Victoria-Vilamoura in Portugal. Like the Stampede Vendor Summits held previously in Buffalo, New York, and Toronto, the European Executive Vendor Summit featured a mix of networking events, one-on-one sales meetings with key vendors and the European sales team, a trade show exhibit, and a keynote business presentation that highlighted the company’s growth plans for the region.
According to Stampede CEO Mark Wilkins, the two-day event included Christie, Luida, Hitachi, Vogels, Calibre, DisplayTen, and TeamMate in addition to senior Stampede management and the entire Stampede European sales team. “This was the first in what will now become an annual event that will only grow larger in the years to come,” Wilkins said. “Our inaugural vendor participants had the opportunity to meet one-on-one with each sales team member and present the full value proposition their product lines offer. As a result, our sales team is more empowered and better prepared to represent these manufacturers to our reseller network.”
“Stampede now has a global presence in North America, Latin America, Europe, Asia, and Australia and is able to connect partner vendors with a reseller network that exceeds 20,000 members,” said Kevin Kelly, president and COO of Stampede. “Clearly, Stampede is open for business worldwide—ready to bring your products and services to 7,000 new resellers around the world that did not do business with us last year.” Kelly referenced the net new gains in the company’s global reseller network achieved through its June 2016 acquisition of Just Lamps.
Reaching this global network of resellers, Kelly continued, is going to be achieved through the launch of expanded new series of policies, programs, and processes that are going to make doing business with Stampede easier than ever before.
The completion of the third Stampede Vendor Summit comes at a time when the company continues to grow and expand across all vertical markets and in every major product category. At the European Vendor Summit, particular emphasis was placed on drone video systems and unified communications, two areas that are growing dramatically throughout Europe. Next year, Kelly plans to integrate augmented and virtual reality into the European product offerings.
Looking forward to 2017, Kelly reiterated a message delivered to attendees of the Buffalo and Toronto summits: opportunity is knocking and it is time to adapt, change, and harvest the new opportunities this shift from a product-centric AV industry to an experiential AV industry is creating. “Our goal is to continue to be the best final mile in the global pro AV industry, and I believe we have the people, programs, and processes in place that will allow us to achieve this goal.”
