The appointment of Nick Tiltman to the UK Board of Computer 2000 as credit director is brilliant news. It means that the day of the credit manager has finally arrived.

Pressed against falling margins, non-performing sales managers, sub-prime channel businesses and inadequate credit resources, the distribution credit manager stands above most other executives.
This much underrated professional also sells more to fledglings and existing players than sales managers. The latter so often fall for the easy sale; tapping up VARs on the ledger, rather than real account management.

Consistent with the evolution of corporations, the problem now with many distributors is that they have gained legions of hierarchical, corporate-types; little benefit to the mission but with sufficient nooks and crannies in the corporate corridors to hide. What began as a minimalist logistical operation, a conduit between vendor and dealer, has now grown into a large and ugly monolith. Back to basics is what credit is about. If you peel off the layers of these distributors, you are only left with a handful of skills; credit being one of them.

Financial institutions dole out money on a secured basis. Distribution credit professionals ship out tangible products on a totally unsecured basis. Can you imagine your local bank doing that? Where possible, however, they will use techniques to protect their trade. They will enable the sale.
The distribution credit manager is unique, even when you look at the membership of the Institute of Credit Management, whose membership comprise credit professionals across all sectors, most would not pass the stringent tests put upon the channel counterpart.

For channel credit managers being good at the job is not enough. For every now and then, some big channel players will fold. So far this year, distribution has lost anything between £5m to £10m, a burden increasingly shared by hybrids and Far East players.

Against this, however, think of the millions being traded safely; think of the ones where bad debt has been skillfully avoided; think of the sales put through as a result of measured credit reviews and client visits. But above all, think of the credit manager.

Nitin Joshi is founder of Channelmoney.