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If you are a senior executive operating in the channel, the issues bleeping on the radar will include trying to ease the skills shortages that have plagued the industry for years. There are steps that can be taken to ease the situation, including training up more staff and bringing in apprentices to keep the flow of fresh talent going. But for the UK boss at Tech Data, it also filters into efforts the distributor is making to improve the diversity of its business. Dave Watts, managing director for UK and Ireland at Tech Data, lists dealing with the skills shortage as one of the firm’s major macro challenges this year. “Acquiring the right level of talent and retaining it is very difficult when you are working in next-generation areas, particularly cloud, IoT [internet of things] and security,” he said. “We’re attacking that [skills challenge] by looking at apprenticeships and [taking on] young people who are not necessarily graduates and putting them through hard levels of training and development. We are also looking at [...