I can see why Tech Data is putting its eggs into multiple baskets. But that also introduces all of the additional challenges of helping VARs find the platform that fits best at any one moment in time.

One place these distributors could shine would be to limit the competing solutions to those that truly are the best and that complement rather than compete with each other. This would very much tell the VAR why they should buy. It’s because the distributor that they trust has told them the solution is the best and not just one of many that they sell.

From what I can tell this is the path that Seismic has been following, although it doesn’t look like Tech Data is.

We should talk. I am traveling a bit but available on cell. I will drop you an email and we’ll make sure we cover the topics we’ve both raised above.

Readers: For those who don’t know Justin, he’s the person behind Ingram Micro Seismic, the distributor’s MSP-centric efforts.
-jp

You bring up an excellent point: Why aren’t you, or anybody else in the IT media, asking Ingram Micro (me) and Tech Data the hard questions? Why are people not digging into each of our announcements to understand what substance is behind them?

Bring it. I welcome the in-depth discussions of our business strategy. I would like to see more people asking the difficult questions of me or my competitors. You would quickly ascertain the differences between strategies and offerings.

Since nobody seems to know what to ask, here are my suggestions: What dedicated personnel and support resources do we have in place to support VARs in the managed services space? Do we have dedicated services sales, operations, marketing, and vendor management teams in place today building this business with our VAR partners? Who owns the services and managed services strategies at each distributor? Do their jobs depend on the successful growth of those business units? Are they compensated on the success and growth of the services business and on the success of their VAR partners? How many VARs are we actively supporting in our respective services businesses? What customer case studies can we provide to support our business strategies? What investments have the distributors made in resources, people, and support for VARs? How are these “partnerships” with managed service tool providers setup and managed? Are they co-marketing agreements or actual contractual business partnerships with shared risk?

Hold us accountable. We welcome those discussions and we’re sure our competitors do, too. I suspect you already know the answers to these questions in the case of Ingram Micro. If you don’t, shame on me.

Justin Crotty
VP Services North America
Ingram Micro