Introduction
What makes a networking product genuinely valuable? For Purdicom, the answer goes beyond what happens on installation day. A strong solution should be easy to understand, simple to deploy, and capable of saving engineers time throughout the entire life of a project.
In this conversation, Purdicom’s Steve Kent and Ashley Edwards share what drew them to the PATCHBOX portfolio, where they see the strongest market opportunities, and why better-organised network cabinets can deliver lasting value for installers and end users alike.
What initially caught your attention about the PATCHBOX portfolio, and what were the biggest selling points when you decided to partner with us?
Steve Kent: From my perspective, it was the ease with which the products can be deployed. Without undervaluing what they do, they are simple to understand, and the portfolio is focused rather than overwhelming. From a sales perspective, that makes the solutions easy to quote, position, and demonstrate. In turn, our customers can explain and offer them just as clearly to their customers. They are straightforward to take to market and easy to service. It also stood out that PATCHBOX already understands our core audience: system integrators and installers. Those are the people who immediately recognise the value, become enthusiastic about the products, and help create demand.
Ashley Edwards: Before joining Purdicom, I spent around 12 years working as an on-site engineer and installing equipment in data cabinets. From that perspective, the entire PATCHBOX range makes interacting with a cabinet easier for both installers and end users. Setup.exe is a great example. When you are working with a laptop in a communications room, there is often nowhere suitable to put it. I cannot count the number of times I ended up sitting in the corner or balancing a laptop on my knee. These products address practical problems that engineers experience every day.
Is there a specific industry in which you see the biggest opportunity for the portfolio?
Steve Kent: I do not think the opportunity is limited to one vertical. We work extensively with partners serving education, student accommodation and other multi-dwelling units, hospitality, internet service providers and wireless ISPs, as well as system integrators.
That broad relevance is one of the strengths of the portfolio. Any customer buying switches, UPS systems, firewalls, or other networking equipment is already working with cabinets. PATCHBOX complements those projects naturally. There is also a generational shift taking place. Engineers increasingly share their work on social media and take pride in showing clean, professional installations. PATCHBOX is ideal for showcasing that craftsmanship. A well-organised cabinet is becoming something engineers expect on every project, not only when a customer specifically requests it.
Which customer challenges can we address most effectively together?
Ashley Edwards: The answer differs slightly for each product. Setup.exe helps engineers with their daily work, so I would recommend keeping one in every engineer’s laptop bag. It is the kind of tool that proves useful again and again. Patchbox.one and Patchcatch Solo solve a different but equally common problem: cabinet clutter. Many cabinets have a waterfall of cables spilling out of the front. A cleaner system makes the cabinet presentable and helps engineers trace each connection quickly. That makes installation, troubleshooting, and maintenance much easier.
Steve Kent: The key commercial challenge is helping customers look beyond the upfront price of a basic patch cable and understand the return on investment over the full project lifecycle. The real question is not simply what a cable costs today. It is how long future changes, deployments, and fault-finding will take. A messy cabinet creates costs every time an engineer has to work on it. Clear ROI messaging can show that an organised system saves money over the long term.
How will customers experience the products in practice?
Steve Kent: We are building a demonstration room that will showcase all our manufacturers in one integrated environment. The plan is to use an open cabinet with an interactive display. When our sales or technical teams demonstrate a switch, they will install it in the cabinet and connect it using PATCHBOX. Setup.exe and the relevant accessories will also be part of the installation. That means customers attending training for another manufacturer will see the PATCHBOX solution working naturally as part of the session. They can observe how easy it is to use and ask about it in context. Every product demonstration can become a live PATCHBOX demonstration too.
Is there a specific PATCHBOX product that has caught your attention most, and why?
Ashley Edwards: For me, it is Setup.exe. As an on-site engineer, having one in my bag would have made my job considerably easier. I spent many hours kneeling or sitting on communications-room floors and balancing a laptop while trying to configure equipment or troubleshoot an issue. Setup.exe addresses that problem directly, and it probably would have saved my knees over the years.
Steve Kent: From a sales perspective, it is easy to overlook the practical challenges engineers face because we are not always the people installing, organising and maintaining the equipment. Before meeting the PATCHBOX team, I had not fully appreciated how common these issues were or how simply they could be solved. I particularly like the PATCHBOX cassette system. It makes a cabinet look clean, smart, and professional while improving its usability.
Looking beyond PATCHBOX, where do you see the biggest opportunities and challenges in the IT market?
Steve Kent: The biggest challenge is cost. Budgets are under pressure, particularly in the UK, while overheads such as energy and other operating expenses continue to rise. That leaves businesses with less money available for infrastructure. However, investment and opportunity still exist. PATCHBOX complements the equipment we already sell, from switches and UPS systems to firewalls. All of those products go into a cabinet, and PATCHBOX can connect and organise them. We can therefore introduce the portfolio to existing customers and add it to current projects without having to find an entirely new market.
If you had to describe PATCHBOX as a company in one sentence, what would you say?
Ashley Edwards: PATCHBOX makes interacting with network cabinets easier.
Steve Kent: PATCHBOX is an engaging, energetic, and innovative team and the foundation of what should be a highly successful partnership.
What headline about our partnership would you love to read two or three years from now?
Steve Kent: I would love to see PATCHBOX included in almost every deployment we support. Ideally, it would appear on every quotation involving a switch, UPS or firewall. The more consistently we introduce it, the more demand and opportunity we can create, and I would like us to reach that point much sooner than three years from now.
Ashley Edwards: Every engineer has a Setup.exe.
Why should other distributors take a closer look at PATCHBOX?
Steve Kent: To be honest, I would rather other UK distributors left the opportunity to us! Purdicom is well positioned to lead by example and drive the market forward! Resellers and channel partners, however, should absolutely take a closer look. PATCHBOX gives them a practical way to enhance their portfolios, make deployments easier, and create lasting value for their customers.
