Q&A: Jo-Anne Foreman, managing director, Widget UK Ltd

What's the company's background?

Widget UK Ltd was founded back in 1987 by technology journalist Mark Needham. He spotted a gap in the market and started the company as a reseller of Psion handheld computers. From there, Widget grew steadily, taking advantage of the evolution of the satellite navigation market in the early part of the Noughties by becoming TomTom's first UK distributor.

Since then, the company's grown apace and we've also taken on major names such as Cisco.

Could you tell us some of your biggest vendors and customers?

On the vendor side, TomTom are still our biggest name. We're also very excited about our newest vendor, OrbitSound. We'll be putting the first volumes into Dixons Group in July and August, plus rolling out all of the vendor's core products across retail, and the sales forecasts are significant.

As for customers, we deal with all the major players – John Lewis, Amazon, Argos, Comet, Maplin, Play, QVC.

What are the major challenges facing the industry at the moment?

Well, Retail is more competitive than it's ever been – it's no secret that the industry is going through a difficult time at the moment.

The key is to find a way to differentiate yourself from the rest and we've done that successfully over the past few years, adding value to both vendors and customers.

How are you differentiating yourself?

Our reporting mechanism is strong. In all of our reports, we collect all sales out data per retailer, per store and compile full reports for vendors on a weekly basis. Our vendors know exactly their stock position in the channel and any sticking points that might crop up. This is great for them as they're not subject to having to wait for retailers to flag up any issues with them as they will already know of any beforehand.

We also deal with in-store promotions, both analysing them and working with partner agencies to roll out cost effective promotions.

Recently, we've finished developing our iPhone which should be approved and live within weeks. This will allow vendors to pull up stock details and allow customers to order at the end of their fingertips.

What advice do you have for anyone looking to get into the industry?

Know your USP and focus on that. You have to differentiate yourself from the competition.