TacticScaleWhat CDW Does & How It Makes Money (CDW)
Updated October 2026 · reflects CDW's latest reported financials
IT products and solutions reseller for businesses, government, and schools. CDW makes money reselling third-party hardware and software to organizations.
How CDW makes money
CDW makes money reselling third-party hardware and software to organizations. It also earns revenue from advisory, implementation, managed services, and warranties layered on top of those sales.
What CDW does
CDW Corporation, founded in 1984 and headquartered in Vernon Hills, Illinois, provides IT solutions to customers in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada. It reports three segments: Commercial, Government, and Education. Its customers include businesses, government agencies, schools, and healthcare organizations. CDW sells individual hardware and software products and also builds integrated solutions that combine on-premise and cloud capabilities across hybrid infrastructure, digital experience, and security. Its hardware range covers notebooks, tablets, networking, collaboration devices, storage, servers, and desktops. On the software side it offers cloud solutions, security, virtualization, productivity applications, and operating systems. It also sells services on top of these products, including advisory and design, software development, implementation, managed services, and warranties.
Products & services
- Notebooks, desktops and mobile devices
- Network communications and collaboration hardware
- Data storage and servers
- Cloud solutions and software licensing
- Security and virtualization software
- Advisory, implementation and managed services
What is CDW worth?
On an owner-earnings DCF, CDW's most-likely value is about $152 versus a recent price near $142 (7% below fair value). But TacticScale only calls a stock undervalued when the price sits below its conservative no-growth floor (~$92) with a margin of safety — so the honest verdict here is “Fairly priced — no edge.” Fair value earns its keep only at the extremes, not in the wide middle.
Price sits in the normal range — fair value isn't actionable here; it earns its keep only when price drops below the no-growth floor, or runs to roughly double the optimistic case.
⚠ High leverage — net debt is 5.5× annual cash flow. Net debt is subtracted from this fair value, but refinancing at higher rates, principal timing, and share dilution aren’t modeled — the equity can be worth far less if cash flow weakens.
Analysis, not advice. Fair value is a margin-of-safety estimate from a deterministic owner-earnings DCF, not a price target or recommendation. See the full breakdown →
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