SAM M. INMAN, President and Chief Operating Officer, Ingram Micro Inc.

Not many would try to fill the shoes of Linwood (Chip) Lacy, who over eight years built Ingram Micro from a $100-million company to the world’s largest distributor of personal computers and software with $4 billion in sales. But Sam Inman, 43, jumped at the opportunity. An ex-IBMer, Inman joined Ingram Micro in Santa Ana as president and chief operating officer in August. He’ll replace Lacy, who received a promotion to the parent company in July as chief executive. Inman spoke with Times staff writer Dean Takahashi.

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Computer distribution is not an easy business to understand. It’s got its own jargon. When you meet someone new, how do you explain its workings to them?

I’ve had the problem in two dimensions. My friends and family ask me what is it that I really do. Others are business associates. I think that a growing number of people in the business world understand distribution better than I would have guessed. What usually helps is this vision of a pipe. At one end of the pipe are the computer manufacturers and vendors, from computer-maker Compaq Computer Corp. in Houston to software publisher Microsoft Corp. in Redmond, Wash. At the other end are the computer resellers, who sell the merchandise in the marketplace to the computer users. At the middle of the pipe is us. The concept of drawing product from the vendors and getting it to the resellers and getting information from the resellers back upstream to the vendors--that’s the way I describe what we do. We buy from the vendors and we supply it to resellers, who sell it to users.

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Can you explain how rapidly the distribution business is changing?

I would say that computer distribution started entering a really rapid period of change and growth in 1989. The personal computer industry was growing rapidly. Secondly, as the profit margins at the vendor level and the reseller level became smaller, the resellers had a burning desire to get rid of the inventory and have someone else carry it because of cost and risk of obsolescence. They started moving the inventory upstream to the middle of the pipe. We carry the risk and provide the credit. Thirdly, most of the manufacturers, or vendors, started thinking about how they could get more product into the marketplace, how they could reach beyond traditional customers and their traditional sales force.

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As far as executive or managerial challenges, what interested you in distribution?

That’s what my wife kept asking me. I had been on one end of the pipe as a vendor in the personal computer business for almost two years. Quite frankly, I was interested in it because being in the middle of this equation, or pipeline, is the most exciting business. You’re positioned very well to bring value upstream to the vendors and downstream to the resellers. I like that, and I like the pace of the PC industry.

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Chip Lacy has been described as energetic. Did you know you could work with him?

That’s one way of describing him. You know how hard it is to take a job with a company you’ve only read about and interviewed with. My advantage was I had worked with this company as a business partner for a couple of years. I knew Chip and all the players here. Chip and I are different in a lot of ways and similar in a lot of ways. Where he had strengths, I had weaknesses and vice versa. And David Dukes, co-chairman, is a third dimension of it. He grew up in the reseller side of the pipe, and I grew up in the vendor side. That adds interesting perspectives to it.

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Did you come aboard with a particular plan to change the management style or strategy of the company?

No. It’s a question I’m often asked. I did not. I’ll tell you what my objective has been. I think it’s a mistake for people to come into any organization with a preconceived notion of what the organization is. I also think it’s a mistake to bring too much baggage from any place else and start applying it. I think it’s a much more interesting personal challenge to take what you know and make changes to yourself that fit. I’ve tried to learn and listen for 90 days and see what I could apply that would make sense or help this company.

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Chip dominated the management style. Do you think that’s why there was no chief operating officer before you?

I think one of Chip’s strengths is that he knows what he doesn’t know. I think that Chip was probably one of the people who realized that he needed a chief operating officer. I think that you have to pick the right kind of person with the right skill set. If you don’t bring anything to the management team, then there is no room for you. I do believe that Chip’s aggressive style could scare a lot of candidates away from a job like this. That didn’t bother me.

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What technologies or classes of products will do well next year?

I don’t think personal digital assistants, or hand-held computers that serve as electronic calendars or messaging systems, will come into their own. They’re not ready. Notebook and sub-notebook computers--portable computers small enough to fit into briefcases--will continue to grow fast. The high-end server products, which run corporate networks of computers, will grow in both the hardware and software markets. I also think the market will continue to grow because of the home computer boom.

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Ingram is expected to hit sales of $5.4 billion next year. What is driving the growth?

The same things driving the industry: The demand for personal computers by corporate America and the home consumer; resellers wanting us to get products to market faster and hold their inventory; manufacturers wanting us to reach new markets for them. Some of the business ventures that we began to produce in 1992 and 1993 should start to produce revenue for us, such as configuration services--where we set up the computer for a custom software setting. We had a small configuration center and have expanded that. That is part of the whole outsourcing trend, something we can do more efficiently and cheaper than the resellers.

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On hiring 250 people in Orange County next year. . .

“We’re in the midst of negotiations now to expand our presence in Orange County so that we’ll have more office and warehouse space.”

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On leaving IBM. . .

“It was really hard for me to leave the IBM Personal Computer Co. It was a lot of hard changes and you form a lot of good relationships.”

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On his style compared to Lacy’s. . .

“There will be changes in the way I approach things versus the way Chip approached things. My hope is that the result will be every bit as good.”

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On Lacy’s promotion. . .

“Everybody at (parent company) Ingram Industries and the board expected that at some point Chip, who has been here eight years, was going to do something else. I knew I would have to produce . . . to help make this succession work out.”