Tim Crown

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Timothy A. Crown (born in Phoenix, Arizona [1]), is the co-founder and current Chairman of the Board of Tempe, Arizona based Insight Enterprises, an IT solutions company with revenue's in 2004 of $3 billion.

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[edit] Biography

Born in Phoenix, Arizona, Crown studied at the University of Kansas [2] and was a member of Delta Chi [3]

Crown's brother Eric studied at the W.P. Carey School of Business, and wrote a senior project business plan to direct sell computer components by telephone, without having the inventory in stock, and then to buy the order from the supplier and ship it as directly as possible to the buyer. Eric received a "C" for the project, because "A"s were reserved only for projects that were viable in the real business world.

[edit] Hard Drives International

On Eric's graduation in 1986, the brothers took a $2000 advance on a credit card to place a single advert in computer parts magazine Computer Shopper. They advertised a hard drive for a price less than they could buy it for, gambling that the price would fall in the 20 days it would take to publish the magazine issue. The prices fell, and their gamble paid off making Hard Drives International famous for having the lowest prices on hard drives [4] [5].

[edit] Insight Enterprises

The brothers repeated the strategy and upscaled the business, changing the name of the company to Insight Enterprises in 1988.

Originally, Insight attracted customers through advertising and the use of inbound toll-free telephone lines. In 1993 it expanded its marketing mix to include catalogs and added outbound telephone account executives to focus on establishing a larger customer base. In 1995, Insight debuted on the World Wide Web [6].

In 1996, the company went public with revenues near the billion dollar a year range, and today has around $5 billion in revenues. Eric has resigned from the board as CEO, while Tim serves as Chairman, and has little involvement in day-to-day operations.

In 2006, Insight acquired Software Spectrum, a global software reseller specialising in enterprise software license sales and software asset management. This acquisition took Insight from 3 countries (US, Canada and the UK) to a 24 country global powerhouse in IT supply rivaling Dell and HP. Able to supply into 170 countries, Insight is currently in the process of expanding its product range in each country.

[edit] References

  1. ^ Hot Zones, Setting Up a New Office Article - Inc. Article
  2. ^ KU News - Ettredge named to Crown/Sherr professorship in School of Business
  3. ^ http://www.deltachi.org/quarterly/spring_summer_01/spring_summer_01.pdf
  4. ^ Insight Enterprises shifting focus to IT services - The Business Journal of Phoenix:
  5. ^ Insight Direct Inc. (IDI)
  6. ^ Growing a Successful Sales Force

[edit] External links