Here’s How SYNNEX Is Inspiring Integrators to Do More with IT (and IoT)

During its annual Inspire Conference, the distributor not only touted more cloud and IT/AV opportunities for growth, but how the company itself can provide valuable partner services.

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To showcase its vendor partners and key areas of focus, SYNNEX offered “Leaders of the Roundtable” breakout sessions and an exhibitor area called the “Hall of Inspiration” that was set up differently than in the past.

The Hall of Inspiration featured single-vendor-only exhibits from some of the major companies, but also themed pavilions — Visual Solutions, Cloud, Regulated Industries, Public Safety & Smart City, Education, SMB and System Builder — that presented a range of products by multiple exhibitors as well as “Solution Sessions” including breakout panel/Q&As throughout the afternoons on more granular topics.

In these areas, integrators could dig deeper into the areas previously addressed by the SYNNEX executives and see first-hand potential end-to-end solutions in action.

For instance, the Education pavilion gave attendees ideas on everything from what a modern school lobby might include (visitor badge printing, wayfinding signage) to technology like video conferencing for remote visitation and teacher development, to state-of-the-art services like 3D printing and virtual field trips.

Visual Solutions showed digital signage, kiosks, various display formats, broadcast studios, and burgeoning opportunities such as in content creation and management, and point of sale solutions. The Public Safety & Smart City offered ideas on syncing surveillance, connected vehicles and command centers, for instance, while Regulated Industries highlighted how areas such as transportation are ripe for analytics.

“Only about 30 percent of vehicles out there for commercial use are equipped with tracking, so there’s a lot of opportunity there,” Kirk Nesbit, SYNNEX’s VP design and support services, noted during a tour.

“There’s a lot you can do, like asset tracking, you know where a vehicle is, you can learn about the driving habits, and improve dispatch capabilities to know if drivers are out near where a service call comes in.”

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Add in things like refrigeration sensors for cargo, onboard Wi-Fi capabilities for testing, and geo-fencing to ensure drivers stay within designated routes and integrators can create robust fleet management.

In the public safety and education markets in particular, SYNNEX noted that it recently brought on resources to aid in assessing the needs and solution designs of integrators and their customers; the distributor has added to its staff six educators as well as the retired Greenville police chief and 30-year law enforcement veteran, Mike Gambrell, to be utilized in key consultant roles.

“Teachers can do one of two things; they can help in the selling motion because they’re selling to district administrators and they know how teachers work in a classroom, and they can do training post-sales deployment of teaching organizations how to use the technology,” suggests Moyer. “One of biggest reasons our business is doing so well is we augment services for our partners.”

Moyer mentioned how the distributor had created as part of its organizational structure specific groups for Microsoft, Google and hybrid cloud business, and that such names still carry clout with customers.

“As you see these transformations happening, brand matters,” says Moyer, noting there’s been “healthy demand” for Microsoft’s Surface Hub, for instance, and exciting education and other use cases from Google.

“Competitors may be selling complex solutions, but [customers will] at least listen to the Google pitch, the Microsoft pitch, that’s where they’re disrupting. It doesn’t mean a lot of vendors are going away, just that convergence is happening because of the cloud, and coming in with a solution that just works, simplifying and streamlining.”

Sandi Stambaugh, SYNNEX VP of product management, says the distributor is seeing a mix of approaches by integrators to entrench themselves further in the IT space, and that the company is also assisting in events such as NSCA’s Pivot to Profit Conference, scheduled for October in Dallas.

“Everything’s coming at the integrators right now, and they’re trying to navigate ‘where do I start,’ without drowning themselves and without over-investing while trying to figure out which pieces are a good fit with their business,” she says.

“So it’s a ‘pivot’ — not a full turn learning this whole new space, but just pivoting slightly, understanding topics around cloud, storage, security, signage. Those are the conversations that are happening with our integrators right now … how are we adding those end points [AV equipment] onto the network, and are they going to poke holes in the network and make it more susceptible to breaches?”

Related: Selling Services Is About to Get Easier with This SYNNEX Program

“Some of our traditional partners are also very interested in helping integrators learn, so they’re more relevant in those conversations with IT directors.”

TJ Trojan, SYNNEX SVP of product management, adds that at the end of the day now, the situation is becoming a win-win for both integrator and end user. As AV integrators become more IT savvy, they also create more of a one-stop solution shop for customers.

“Education is a good example here. It used to be in education four-to-five different integrators providing different solutions, so you’d have back office, you’d have storage, you’d have AV, you’d have the IT guys, and now it’s really a single connected solution,” Trojan says.

“So our AV integrators literally selling tens of thousands of devices, Chromebooks, charging carts, and they’re bringing in wired and wireless infrastructure. End users, they’re embracing it, they’d rather have ‘one throat to choke’ — if a network goes down or there’s a breach, they don’t know what caused it and they’re not going to want to go to five different integrators to check it out.”

 

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Arlen Schweiger is Editor-in-Chief of CE Pro and former managing editor of sister publications Commercial Integrator and Security Sales & Integration. Arlen contributes installation features, business profiles, manufacturer news and product reviews.

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