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If you thought a vertical-market strategy and one-stop shopping were the strategies to put your revenues through the roof, it might be worth taking notes from Anixter International Inc., which does neither, but has nevertheless grown to the point of a projected US$3 billion in sales by the end of this year.
Anixter prides itself on its networking specialty and takes a horizontal approach to solutions. "We don't focus on any specific vertical," says Gavin Fisher, director, network systems marketing, at Anixter Canada's Mississauga, Ont., office. Anixter, whose customers include the Toronto Stock Exchange, Nesbitt Burns, Imperial Oil and The Hospital for Sick Children, has noted that within its large accounts, demands vary drastically from department to department. "Every network is probably different," Fisher says, "they're all like living organisms. Some you design for growth and scalability; others you design to be extremely robust and reliable." The TSE, for example, requires a redundant, fault-tolerant architecture, while an insurance company, with more tolerance for downtime, would be a candidate for gigabit Ethernet rather than ATM. "It depends on how they want to grow, and how they need to grow," Fisher explains. "You try to balance all those out and come up with the best...