PC Connection, Inc., together with its subsidiaries, provides various information technology (IT) solutions worldwide
The company is a Fortune 1000 Global Solutions Provider. The company's dedicated account managers partner with customers to design, deploy, and support cutting-edge IT environments using the latest hardware, software, and services. The company provides a wide range of IT solutions, from the desktop to the cloud—including computer systems, data center solutions, software, and pe...
PC Connection, Inc., together with its subsidiaries, provides various information technology (IT) solutions worldwide
The company is a Fortune 1000 Global Solutions Provider. The company's dedicated account managers partner with customers to design, deploy, and support cutting-edge IT environments using the latest hardware, software, and services. The company provides a wide range of IT solutions, from the desktop to the cloud—including computer systems, data center solutions, software, and peripheral equipment, networking communications, and other products and accessories that it purchases from manufacturers, distributors, and other suppliers. The company's Technology Solutions Organization, or TSO, and state-of-the-art Technology Integration and Distribution Center, or TIDC, with an ISO 9001:2015 certified technical configuration lab, offer end-to-end services related to the design, configuration, and implementation of IT solutions. The company's team also provides a comprehensive portfolio of managed services and professional services. These services are performed by its personnel and by third-party providers. The company's GlobalServe offering ensures worldwide coverage for its multinational customers, delivering global procurement solutions through its network of in-country suppliers in over 150 countries.
The ‘Connection’ brand includes Connection Enterprise Solutions, Connection Business Solutions, and Connection Public Sector Solutions. The company united all of its subsidiaries into one cohesive brand, reflecting the promise of its blue arc and its mission to connect people with technology that enhances growth, elevates productivity, and empowers innovation. These entities represent the company's three operating segments and their respective markets:
Connection Enterprise Solutions – serving large enterprise customers.
Connection Business Solutions – serving small to medium-sized businesses, or SMBs.
Connection Public Sector Solutions – serving federal, state, and local government and educational institutions.
The company generates sales through outbound inside sales and field sales contacts by sales representatives focused on the business, educational, healthcare, retail, manufacturing, and government markets, its websites, and direct responses from customers responding to its advertising media. The company offers a broad selection of over 460,000 products at competitive prices, including products from vendors like Apple, Cisco, Dell Inc., Hewlett-Packard Inc., Hewlett-Packard Enterprise, Intel, Lenovo, Microsoft Corporation, and VMware, and it partners with more than 2,500 suppliers.
The company strives to identify the unique needs of its corporate, government, educational, and small business customers, and has designed its business processes to enable its customers to effectively manage their IT systems. The company provides value by offering its customers efficient design, integration, deployment, and support of their IT environments. Sales representatives are responsible for managing enterprise, commercial, and public sector accounts, as specialization and a deep understanding of unique customer environments are more important than ever. These sales representatives focus on current and prospective customers and are supported by an increasing number of engineering, technical, and administrative staff through its TSO. The company's Industry Solutions Group, or ISG, provides its sales team and customers with insights and guidance customized to the unique needs of its vertical markets, including healthcare, retail, finance, and manufacturing.
The company markets its products and services through its websites: www.connection.com, www.connection.com/enterprise, www.connection.com/publicsector, www.cnxnhelix.com, and www.macconnection.com.
Market
In the fiscal year ended December 31, 2024, the company generated approximately 42.2% of its sales from medium-to-large businesses (Fortune 1000), 37.4% from SMBs, and 20.4% from government and educational institutions.
The largest segment of the United States IT market that the company operates within is served by local and regional value-added resellers, or VARs, many of whom engage in the sales of hardware and software products, as well as higher-margin IT services. The company has adapted its business over the years to become an enterprise-wide IT solutions supplier. The company has also partnered with third-party technology and telecommunications service providers to offer its customers access to the same services and technical expertise as local and regional VARs, but with a more extensive product selection, often at lower prices.
Intense competition for customers has led manufacturers of the IT products the company offers to use all available distribution channels, including solutions providers, to distribute their products. Certain manufacturers who have traditionally used resellers to distribute their products have also, from time to time, established their own direct marketing operations, including sales through the Internet.
Business Strategies
The key elements of the company's business strategies include providing consistent customer service before, during, and after the sale; offering a broad product selection at competitive prices; simplifying technology product procurement for corporate customers; offering targeted IT solutions; maintaining a strong brand name and customer awareness; and maintaining long-standing vendor relationships.
Growth Strategies
The company's seven key elements of growth are expanding hardware and software offerings; expanding IT solution services offerings; delivering artificial intelligence, or AI, and automation solutions; targeting customer segments; migrating to cloud-based solutions for its customers; and pursuing strategic acquisitions and alliances.
Service and Support
Supplementing the company’s sales force, the company's TSO offers in-depth technical support across a wide range of advanced technology solutions. These teams of engineers and solution architects design end-to-end IT solutions tailored to its customers’ unique environments and serve as technology consultants. The company's TIDC ensures a superior customer experience, with seamless configuration, deployment, and support services. Product support technicians assist customers with questions concerning compatibility, installation, and more difficult questions relating to product use. The product support technicians authorize customers to return defective or incompatible products to either the manufacturer or to the company for warranty service. In-house TIDC technicians perform both warranty and non-warranty repair on most of the major systems and hardware products.
Using the company’s customized information system, the company transmits its customer orders either to its TIDC or to its drop-ship suppliers, depending on product availability, for processing immediately after a customer receives credit approval. At its distribution center, the company also performs custom configuration services, which typically include custom imaging, the installation and integration of additional components, and other technology enhancements.
Marketing and Sales
The company sells its products through its direct marketing channels to SMBs, including small office/home office customers, government and educational institutions, and medium-to-large businesses. The company strives to be the primary supplier of IT products and solutions to its customers by providing exemplary customer service. The company uses multiple marketing approaches to reach existing and prospective customers, including: outbound inside sales and field sales; digital, web, and print media advertising; and targeted marketing programs to specific customer populations.
All of the company's marketing approaches emphasize its broad product offerings, fast delivery, customer support, competitive pricing, and its wide range of service solutions.
Sales Channels: The company's customers’ primary contact with it is through its sales representatives, and the company is committed to maintaining a qualified, knowledgeable, and motivated sales staff with a principal focus on customer service.
Outbound Inside Sales and Field Sales: The company seeks to build loyal relationships with potential high-volume customers by assigning them to individual account managers. Once established, these one-on-one relationships are maintained and enhanced through frequent telecommunications and targeted electronic communications, as well as other marketing materials designed to meet each customer’s specific IT needs. The company pays most of its account managers a base annual salary plus incentive compensation. Incentive compensation is tied generally to gross profit dollars produced by the individual account manager.
E-commerce Sales: The company generally provides product descriptions and prices for all of the products it offers through the e-commerce websites it maintains and operates. The company's Connection website also provides updated information for more than 460,000 items. The company offers, and continuously updates, selected product offerings and other special buys.
For example, the company's Enterprise Solutions Segment’s business process and operations are primarily Web-based. Most of its corporate customers utilize a customized Web page to quickly search, source, and track IT products. The company's Enterprise Solution business website aggregates the available inventories of its largest IT suppliers into a single online source for its corporate customers. Its custom-designed Internet-based system, MarkITplace, provides corporate buyers with comparative pricing from several suppliers, as well as special pricing arranged through the manufacturer.
Operating Segments: The company conducts its business operations through three operating segments: Enterprise Solutions, Business Solutions, and Public Sector Solutions.
Enterprise Solutions Segment: Through the company’s custom-designed Web-based system, the company is able to offer its larger corporate customers an efficient and effective method of sourcing, evaluating, purchasing, and tracking a wide variety of IT products and services. The company's strategy is to be the primary single source procurement portal for its large corporate customers.
Business Solutions Segment: The company's principal target markets in this segment are small to medium-sized business customers. The company uses a combination of outbound inside sales, including some on-site sales solicitation by business development managers, and Internet sales through customized Internet Business Accounts, to reach these customers.
Public Sector Solutions Segment: The company uses a combination of outbound inside sales, including some on-site sales solicitation by business development managers, and Internet sales through customized Internet Business Accounts, to reach these customers. The company targets each of the four distinct market sectors within this segment—federal government, higher educational institutions, school grades K-12, and state and local governments.
The company's ISG works across all operating segments to service the unique needs of healthcare, retail, finance, and manufacturing customers. Within each of these vertical markets, the company's ISG experts offer technology solutions and guidance backed by real-world experience. The company's brand, and each of its operating segments, is supported by targeted marketing campaigns across a variety of media:
Digital: The company utilizes a series of digital programs, in conjunction with advanced data analytics, to identify prospective customers and generate new leads within its existing customer base. These programs include website, email, blog, social media, electronic catalogs, webinars, and video/multimedia promotions.
Specialty Marketing: In addition to its digital marketing efforts, the company maintains a strong presence at industry tradeshows and conventions across the country, including a number of healthcare and education IT conferences. The company also hosts a series of Technology Summits each year, with a focus on building stronger relationships with its customers and reinforcing its reputation as a trusted source of expertise.
Customers: The company maintains an extensive database of customers and prospects. The loss of any single customer would not have a material adverse effect on any of its operating segments. The majority of the company's backlog historically has been and continues to be open cancelable purchase orders. The company does not have individual orders in its backlog that are material to its business.
Products And Merchandising
The company continuously focuses on expanding the breadth of its product and service offerings. The company offers its customers over 460,000 IT products designed for business applications from more than 2,500 vendors. These products consist of hardware, including devices, peripherals, accessories, servers, storage, and networking products, along with cloud solutions, software, and services.
Purchasing and Vendor Relations
Product purchases from Ingram Micro, Inc., TD Synnex Corporation, and Dell Inc. accounted for approximately 25%, 23%, and 11%, respectively, of the company's total product purchases in 2024.
Products manufactured by Microsoft Corporation, HP Inc., and Dell Inc. represented approximately 15%, 12%, and 12%, respectively, of the company's total product purchases in 2024.
Distribution
The company fulfills orders from customers both from products it holds in inventory and through drop shipping arrangements with manufacturers and distributors. At its 268,000 square foot technology TIDC in Wilmington, Ohio, the company receives and ships inventory, configures and integrates technology solutions, provides depot maintenance and services, and processes returned products. The TIDC features a state-of-the-art ISO 9001:2015-certified Configuration Lab that completed more than 550,000 custom configurations in 2024—including personal computing devices, servers, mobile devices, and networking hardware. The company's technicians maintain extensive certifications and authorizations from all major manufacturers, with more than 90% of the TIDC technicians holding one or more CompTIA certifications. Through the TIDC, the company is able to offer customers turnkey solutions for all of their IT needs, including hardware configuration, imaging and provisioning, asset management, remote management, white glove enrollment services, kitting, custom packaging, and depot repair services.
The company also places product orders directly with manufacturers and/or distribution companies for drop shipment directly to its customers. Products drop shipped by suppliers were 69% of net sales in 2024. Electronic delivery for software licenses were approximately 10% of total net sales in 2024.
Competition
The company competes with other national solutions providers of IT products, including CDW Corporation, SHI, and Insight Enterprises, Inc., who are the current leaders in the space. The company also competes with certain product manufacturers that sell directly to customers, as well as some of its own suppliers, such as Apple, Dell Inc., HP Inc., and Lenovo; software publishers, such as Microsoft Corporation, VMware, and Adobe; companies that develop and deliver on bespoke AI projects, such as Palantir and Scale.ai; cloud providers, such as Amazon Web Services, Google, and Microsoft Corporation; large service providers and system integrators, such as Accenture, CGI, and IBM; communications service providers, such as AT&T and Verizon; various franchisers, office supply superstores, and national computer retailers, such as Office Depot and Staples; and e-tailers, such as Amazon, with more extensive commercial online networks.
Intellectual Property Rights
The company's trademarks include, among others, Connection, PC Connection, GovConnection, MacConnection, we solve IT, Everything Overnight, Mobile Connection, Cloud Connection, Education Connection, MoreDirect, CNXN Helix, WebSPOC, Softmart, GlobalServe, Raccoon Character, Connection Cloud MarkITplace, ConnectOne, QaaM, and their related logos and all iterations thereof.
Regulatory Matters
Specifically, the company's Public Sector Solutions segment is governed by various laws and regulations, including but not limited to laws and regulations relating to: the formation, administration, and performance of contracts; the security and control of information and information systems; international trade compliance; human trafficking; and the mandatory disclosure of ‘credible evidence’ of a violation of certain criminal laws, receipt of significant overpayments, or violations of the civil False Claims Act.
The company's Public Sector Solutions is also subject to oversight by the U.S. Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs, or OFCCP, for federal contract and affirmative action compliance, including the following areas: affirmative action plans; applicant tracking; compliance training; customized affirmative action databases and forms; glass ceiling and compensation audits; desk and on-site audits; conciliation agreements; disability accessibility for applicants and employees; diversity initiatives; equal employment opportunity compliance; employment eligibility verification (known as ‘E-Verify’); internal affirmative action audits; internet recruiting and hiring processes; OFCCP administrative enforcement actions; record-keeping requirements; and Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 compliance.
Under applicable federal and state laws, the company is required to comply with a number of requirements when sending commercial email or making telephone calls to consumers. For example, under applicable federal and state unfair competition laws, including the California Consumer Legal Remedies Act, and the U.S. Federal Trade Commission regulations, the company must accurately identify product offerings, not make misleading claims on its platforms, and use qualifying disclosures where and when appropriate when distributing commercial emails to consumers. The company is also subject to the Federal Telecommunications Commission’s Telemarketing Sales Rule, the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, and the Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act of 2003.
History
PC Connection, Inc. was founded in 1982. The company was incorporated in 1983.
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