As Madonna, Cher and Sting might tell you, one name is sometimes better than three. Carolina Wholesale Group (CWG), the parent company of Digitek and Arlington Industries, might agree — the firm recently announced it would combine its three brands under one name, the newly created ARLINGTON.
The three companies have been under the same ownership since CWG purchased Digitek in 2016; Arlington was purchased by CWG in 2004 when its previous owner, Daisytek, filed bankruptcy. “(Daisytek) had acquired Arlington a few years before the bankruptcy, and Arlington was a very healthy portion of that business,” said Brent Martin, director of marketing for ARLINGTON.
CWG, based in Charlotte, North Carolina, was a single-location distributor from 1972 to 2004 until that acquisition. It sold some imaging supplies, but its strength was in business machines, as a direct dealer for such brands as Canon, Kyocera and Ricoh.
Libertyville, Illinois-based Arlington, founded in 1973, was primarily a supplies dealer, which complemented the CWG model nicely. The acquisition also allowed the company to expand into a multilocation national distributor with locations in California and Georgia as well as North Carolina and Illinois.
While for the first couple of years Arlington and CWG ran on their own, said Martin, eventually they consolidated the back-end systems, using the same inventory, pricing, warehouses, etc. Then in 2016 came the acquisition of Digitek Computer Products, founded in 1998 with its focus on storage media. While that line still exists (and will be available as an additional product line to the new ARLINGTON companies), the firm saw the need to branch out and began to bring in more imaging supplies lines. The acquisition by CWG in 2016 created one of the largest distributors of imaging supplies and business machines in the country. It also expanded CWG’s footprint again, into Pennsylvania and particularly Texas, which Martin says was very strategic, and a hole for the company before the acquisition.
Digitek was immediately integrated into the company’s back-end systems and its locations added to the distribution network, and the company operated with its three brand names intact for nearly two years — but Martin said it was clear they needed to come together. The question was, which name to use? “We value all the brands,” explained Martin. “That’s what kept us from doing this earlier. But now it’s at a point where the advantages outweigh the disadvantages.”
Martin is excited about the transition, which is scheduled to take place January 1. “We started this process early in 2018,” he said, explaining the process the company has gone through in landing on a brand. “There’s strength in all the brands,” he noted, but Arlington’s strong reputation and name recognition put it at the front.
The change experienced by customers should be minimal, as the three brands all share the same e-commerce back end, and phone lines and email addresses will automatically forward. Some changes, like the availability of new opportunities, will be for the better. “Arlington and Digitek both have strong reputations in imaging supplies distribution, both private label and customer labeling — we’re looking to enhance those solutions and provide more solutions on the imaging supplies side,” Martin said. “CWG has a lot of strength in imaging hardware — we recently began selling the Canon imagePROGRAF line and we’re looking to expand on that side.” Digitek’s PartnerPro suite of digital marketing solutions for independent resellers will also be a valuable addition for customers of all three brands. “We’re always keeping our eyes open for areas where we can provide more solutions,” said Martin.
Martin emphasizes that the company remains mindful of the history of CWG and Digitek to their customers, and there are no plans to go through major consolidation. “We’re maintaining the sales staff for all — we’re blending them, so our customers are still dealing with the same people. We pride ourselves on the long tenure of our staff — it averages in the 11- or 12-year range.”
Mergers can be difficult, but the company has taken a very well-thought-out approach, combining some of the bigger pain points — back-end systems, inventory and distribution — over the course of almost 15 years in some cases. We’ll see the results of that labor in the new year when the latest single-named wonder, ARLINGTON, makes its debut.
Amy Weiss is a technology-focused writer and editor with more than two decades of experience in the office technology industry, including print and imaging, workflow automation, software, digital transformation, document management, and cybersecurity.