CDW 2006 Annual Report Download - page 6

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What do we expect in 2007? Despite an uncertain outlook in the U.S. economy and sluggish
U.S. business and government personal computer sales in the third and fourth quarters of
2006, CDW is positioned to prosper and grow in 2007 and beyond. We still aspire to reach our
ambitious goal of a $10 billion annual run rate in revenue by the end of 2008, which will likely
include both organic growth and acquisition activity.
As we continue to expand our platform for growth, we will strive to:
• Profitably outpace market growth
• Leverage our investments and improve productivity
• Continue our tradition of providing unmatched service to our customers
• Adapt to changing market dynamics, even though change may be challenging
in the short term
• Invest strategically in our long-term growth
With the geographic realignment complete, our corporate sales team serving medium and
large customers is well positioned to benefit from its new regional focus and is re-energized to
compete in a market where we are one of the leading players, even though our market share is
less than 4 percent.
To further invest for future growth, we plan to add 350 to 400 net new sales force coworkers
across all of our operating segments. The geographic realignment gives us greater visibility into
selling opportunities with both existing and prospective medium and large corporate customers.
Our ability to effectively align account managers with customers and specifically target where
to place incoming account managers in the medium and large sales team has greatly improved.
While it takes time for new account managers to gain selling expertise and build customer
relationships, we believe this is the right time to make this important investment.
We will strategically hire engineers for Berbee to drive additional growth and IT coworkers to
better leverage technology and improve productivity gains. To offset these planned
investments, we intend to keep expenses in check and leverage our previous investments in
other support functions.
Turning to industry trends, many of our vendor partners, such as HP, Microsoft, Cisco, Adobe,
IBM and Lenovo, are focusing greater attention on growth opportunities in the small business
channel. These major vendors are developing more products specific to small business
customers’ needs. We are working with our partners to create and merchandise bundled
solutions and promote these products and solutions to our customers. Many of our partners
consider us their preferred partner to most effectively reach this highly fragmented market of
more than 11 million businesses.
After six years as your CEO, I remain confident about our future because of our coworkers’
commitment to excellent customer service and the strength of our executive team. We have
made significant investments over the past two years and are more strategically positioned than
any of our competitors to take market share and grow profitably.
2006 Financial Highlights:
• Revenue grew 7.8% to
$6.8 billion
• Returned $268 million to
shareholders through share
repurchases and annual dividend
• Return on invested capital: 33.9%
• Return on equity: 20.7%
CDW sells the
leading technology
brands including:
Acer
Adobe
APC
Apple
Cisco
Fujitsu
HP
IBM
Lenovo
Microsoft
Panasonic
Quantum
Samsung
Sony
Symantec
ViewSonic