The strong reseller attendance at the event reflected both increased reseller interest and D&H’s greater investment in the Canadian market.

Last week D&H Canada held their Montréal THREAD Technology Conference at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in the Montréal Airport, in Montréal, Quebec. It followed up the earlier Toronto THREAD conference held in September. Both partner attendance and interest at the Montréal event were very strong, reflecting D&H’s strong momentum in the province and their decision to invest more in the Canadian market.

This is the first year the THREAD branding has been used around these D&H events, because although the name was coined several years ago, COVID prevented any of the THREAD events from happening live.

“The name of the events was actually changed before the pandemic, but the pandemic shut it all down,” said Michelle Biase, D&H Canada General Manager. The first live THREAD events are actually being held this year. The messaging around the name refers to the thread and community between vendors and their services and our partners. It’s really about that thread that weaves through all the participants.”

Biase said that its difficult to compare this event against earlier ones because of the COVID interruption, but she indicated that D&H was very happy with the results.

“We looked closely at both the Toronto and Montréal events and our attendance in both was good and exceeded expectations,” she stated. We had 170 reseller attendees in Toronto and 120 in Montreal. Solution providers are really thirsty right now for both knowledge and programs that they can leverage. We were thrilled with the results. The attendees ranged from large to small in terms of size, with individuals ranging from sales people to tech people to company leaders. We talked with some of the leaders who were interested in establishing a strategic relationship with us.”

The 120 attendees in Montréal was particularly impressive, since Toronto got 170 in a much larger market.

“Quebec is one of our fastest growing regions right now,” Biase noted. “We have built on that by hiring a field sales person there, adding some bilingual sales folks to support the region, and realigning our sales strategy to better improve that market.”

Biase gave a keynote presentation at the event to discuss D&H’s latest BFG initiatives. The BFG [Built for Growth, Generations, and Giving] program came up from the United States a year ago, with the objective of doubling D&H’s business in Canada over the next two fiscal years.

“Our BFG strategy is consistently focused, and it’s now all about the execution,” Biase said. “Through this initiative, we have doubled the size of our sales organization in Canada in the last 12 months. We have had field sales people in Canada since we opened, but this is the first time we have Canadian-based sales people in our offices.”

While D&H Canada opened a new office and distribution facility in Brampton in 2014, through the BFG initiative they will soon be moving again, to a much larger one.

“The BFG strategy is to invest in expanded facilities,” Biase said. “We already built a new one in Surrey B.C., and in Toronto we will move into a new one in the fall of 2023. It will be three the size of the present facility and will have configuration facilities and capacity for supply chain services. Our corporate office will be there as well as our distribution centre. That’s a huge investment.”

Biase said that they are seeing a positive response to new BFG and programs through D&H’s Modern Solutions Business unit established by BFG.

“It is growing at about 8x the market rate in Canada,” she added. “We can also leverage it presence there to give back through D&H Canada Cares, which we launched this year. In Montréal, we are sponsoring Le Bouclier D’Athena [The Shield Of Athena], a local non-profit organization for victims of family violence.” In Toronto, they sponsor Youth Without Shelter, which places hundreds of young people each year into stable, affordable housing and helps teach them life skills, including budgeting, shopping, and cooking.