Insights Into 2017 - GTDC · deployments and offering a route to create and offer data center...

Insights Into 2017Channel executives and distribution leaders share their partnership perspectives

GLOBAL TECHNOLOGY DISTRIBUTION COUNCILGTDC

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Putting the Pieces Together...

It was a frenetic year in the IT channel, one marked by technology innovation, new relationships and transformative business models. Now, all eyes turn to 2017. There’s so much we don’t know—can’t know—about what the future holds. If we did, we’d all be billionaires.

Instead, we look to aggregate as much information as possible, collecting puzzle piece after puzzle piece until we can assemble a bigger-picture view of what to expect next year. We surveyed more than 70 vendor channel executives and interviewed more than 20 distribution executives and GTDC Rising Star award winners to get their insight on where the industry is going.

The results reveal a positive outlook for business overall, balanced by the view that more work needs to be done to keep up with trends like digital and cloud and the accelerated demand those technologies bring. Customers have moved beyond wanting technology to improve productivity and efficiency. They expect it now. That’s a seismic shift in attitude and it means that the entire IT supply chain (vendors, distributors and solution providers) must work in concert to bring ready-made industry-specific solutions to market more quickly.

It means a big shift in how we think of security (from point products to a platform-oriented model). It means marrying traditional IT with operational technology to creative innovative IoT solutions. It means developing solutions around the continued consumerization and socialization of technology—again, because that’s what people expect. It means huge opportunity for the channel, because vendors increasingly recognize the value that distributors and solution providers bring. And it means another year marked by technology innovation, new relationships and transformative business models.

Happy New Year, indeed.

Table of Contents Analytics .......................................................................................................................................................................................................................3Business Outlook .......................................................................................................................................................................................................4Cloud ..............................................................................................................................................................................................................................5Data Center/Big Data/Hyperconvergence .......................................................................................................................................................6IoT....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................7Mobility .........................................................................................................................................................................................................................8New Business Models ..............................................................................................................................................................................................9Pro A/V...........................................................................................................................................................................................................................10Security .........................................................................................................................................................................................................................11Services .........................................................................................................................................................................................................................12Vendor Relationships ...............................................................................................................................................................................................13 Vertical Markets .........................................................................................................................................................................................................14

Inside the Insights

The GTDC commissioned CommCentric Solutions to produce Insights Into 2017 based on detailed interviews and surveys during a three-month period ending in October 2016. The agency’s research practice is led by Scott Campbell, who has 20 years of experience covering technology and channel business issues, including for CRN, the industry’s leading trade publication.

GLOBAL TECHNOLOGY DISTRIBUTION COUNCILGTDC

www.gtdc.org(813) [email protected]

www.commcentric.com(813) [email protected]

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Analytics

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Analytics I Business Outlook I Cloud I Data Center/Big Data/Hyperconvergence I IoT I Mobility I New Business Models I Pro A/V I Security I Services I Vendor Relationships I Vertical Markets

Distributors have used business intelligence solutions for several years to analyze partner and customer information, providing valuable insight to vendors and solution providers. From expiring warranty notifications to additional cross-sell opportunities based on prior purchases, the information was well received across the supply chain. Today, more complex BI solutions mean distributors can do even more. Look for further innovation in 2017 that brings incremental revenue and profit potential, said executives.

“We’re using it to identify opportunities for our business partners. For example, bringing new products to partners. We continually do an analysis of customers for the last two years. We have to move faster in investing in some next-generation areas and help our partners learn how to monetize these new opportunities. That’s really key for us.”

— Miriam Murphy, Senior Vice President, North Region EMEA, Avnet TS

“Five or 10 years ago, if a partner called at 4 p.m. and couldn’t get a sales rep, they’d wait and call the next morning. New partner types want this access on demand, 24x7.”

— Rob Moyer, Vice President, Software and Cloud Services, SYNNEX

“Getting more from customer info was a large investment a few years back and has been crucial to our business development efforts and marketing in the last few quarters. Leveraging the latest BI technology, we have even more visibility and can use even more data to forecast demand and run predictive analytics to manage inventory.”

— Michael Papaeracleous, Executive Director, Distribution, Logicom

“We talk all the time about the promise of business analytics. We support those solutions. Now this is eating your own cooking. We’re using analytics to understand the pricing environment in the market and which customer segments are delivering better levels of growth and profitability. Business analytics across our distribution enterprise, top to bottom, can help drive efficiency and better profitability.”

— Rich Hume, COO, Tech Data

“Distribution is a data mine and if we don’t mine, analyze and share the data, what use is there in collecting it. We have the market knowledge and business analytics channel partners need to make better informed business decisions and build successful solutions.”

— Kirk Robinson, SVP Go-to-Market, Ingram Micro

GTDC Members Cover...

95% of theWorld

(185 Countries)

“Distributors’ scale, specialization and business intelligence have been key to VMware’s business. Business from distribution-led partners is strong, and looking forward, distributors’ ability to specialize—areas such as recruitment, enablement, marketing and of course sales execution—and not try to be all things to all people, will be critical.”

— Frank Rauch Vice President, Americas Partner Organization, VMware

“We’re using it to identify opportunities for our business partners. For example, bringing new products to partners. We do a two-year analysis of customers to help identify opportunities. We have to move faster in investing in some next-generation areas and help our partners learn how to monetize these new opportunities. That’s really key for us.”

— Miriam Murphy Senior Vice President, North Region EMEA, Avnet TS

Business Outlook

“More and more manufacturers are coming up with great new technology—like 3D printing, robots, drones and virtual reality. We see a huge demand for education in new technologies. 2017 should be a big year for distributors based on our focus of market knowledge, vendor knowledge and channel knowledge. IoT is driving that business with all kinds of smart connected devices and data analytics. We see rapid development in industrial automation, smart home and smart transportation. More and more solutions will be customized—not only the products but complementary solutions for complete vertical markets.”

— Aleksandrs Orlovs Business Development Director, ELKO Grupa

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Projected Revenue Increase Through Distribution

45%

0-10%Growth

20%

31% +Growth

13%

21-30%Growth

22%

11-20%Growth

More than half of vendor channel executives expect double-digit growth in 2017

(October 2016 survey of 70+ IT vendor channel executives)

55%

Nearly 62% of vendors expect their indirect business to grow in 2017 faster than direct business, evidence that distributors have a right to feel bullish heading into the new year. In particular, executives noted that distributors are placing heavy investments in high-growth, high-profit technologies and business models.

“Industry analysts see a $127 billion public IT cloud services opportunity worldwide in addition to a $256 billion managed services opportunity around public cloud by 2018; distribution plays a critical role to capitalize on this forecast. Consequently, Microsoft is placing increasing emphasis on the cloud business through distribution, giving them more and more opportunity as we expand our public cloud assets. In 2017 more than any other time we’ll see the greatest variety of technology to sell and we’ll continue to expand that selection to help transform their business and expand the channel.”

— Jon Strausburg Cloud Sales Director, SMB&D, Microsoft

“Cloud financing is becoming a critical component of selling cloud. In many cases, it takes what has traditionally been called non-traditional financing, but soon will become traditional financing as more solution providers get used to selling cloud and customer demand accelerates. We are also seeing a shift in the market with respect to the cloud ecosystem requirements and our partners being in a position to sell and finance cloud. Some of the things we do around recurring revenue and bringing new partners into the ecosystem helps our base become broader and makes cloud easier for partners to sell.”

— Wayne Peters Senior Director, Arrow Capital Solutions, Arrow Electronics.

Cloud

“We are going through a massive digital transformation and the importance of cloud services is growing exponentially. The distribution industry is in transition and cloud is a good example of how the line has vanished between B2B and B2C. We see some movement in the value chain toward cloud services based on the data intelligence that distributors gather. For example, one thing we are working on is more business intelligence related to customer behavior prediction dynamics in correlation to market dynamics. We can provide that as an added value to our partners.”

— Aleksandrs Orlovs Business Development Director, ELKO Grupa

“VARs and MSPs will continue to transform their business models to include cloud-delivered solutions. Collectively, as a distribution tier, we need to understand and help predict trends that will allow us to build the right solutions, and deploy flexible financial options to help resellers transform their models.”

— Peter DiMarco Vice President, VAR Sales, D&H Distributing

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Bank On It in 2017!

51% of channel execs surveyed expect distributors to develop or enhance cloud f inancing programs.

Source: GTDC Research, 2016

The emergence of cloud has transformed distribution along with the IT industry. Increasingly, vendors are relying on the channel to bring cloud solutions to market and that won’t change in 2017. In addition, look for more services and solutions built around cloud from distributors as cloud adoption reaches critical mass, said executives. A new GTDC survey finds that cloud is the solution category where vendor channel executives see distributors making the most progress next year.

Data Center/Big Data/ Hyperconvergence

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Hyper-converged solutions are changing the way we think of data centers and changing the way distributors think of selling data center solutions. With cloud, software-defined architecture and other technologies pushing their way into the enterprise (and small business), distributors are driving the enablement of these technologies into the market.

“We see the biggest opportunities in flash storage, hyper-convergence and hybrid cloud solutions from a data center perspective. Our job is to help our vendors and partners find incremental growth. To leverage growth it’s important that vendors keep investing in the channel. Have a clear channel strategy and follow that strategy in a very constant way. This is key for our partners and for us.”

— Tim Henneveld, COO, TIM AG

“Look for cloud to have a significant impact on the data center. We’re mainly focusing on hybrid cloud deployments and offering a route to create and offer data center assets through our Cloud Services Marketplace.”

— Michael Papaeracleous, Executive Director, Distribution, Logicom

“Mobility, analytics, social media—these are things that were born in the consumer side that have made their way into enterprise. We always use the term ‘from the living room to the data center.’ Solutions are being built for enterprises of all sizes that have been impacted by consumer trends like social and mobility. Customers are asking for solutions that incorporate all of these pieces across the entire spectrum.”


“Hyper-converged is changing the landscape. By 2021, it’s going to be a $40 billion move from traditional data center to a hyper-converged, software-defined space. We need distribution to do that with us, by educating partners and finding creative ways to supply, configure, stage solutions and figure out how to finance customer growth as well.”

— Sammy Kinlaw, North American Channel Chief, Lenovo

Architects of Added Value…Channel execs surveyed cited data center as among the top 3 solution categories for their distribution businesses in 2017:


Data CenterSecurityCloud

Internet of Things

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The Internet of Things (IoT) phenomenon will continue as a big focus for distributors and vendor channel executives in 2017. A GTDC survey earlier this year revealed that more than 85% of executives from top technology companies rate the IoT opportunity as “huge” or “significant.” In more recent interviews, executives said vendors and VARs will continue making more investments next year as business cases get built around specific vertical market solutions.

“IoT is certainly going to be a strong driver for data center business. It’s not a topic that many partners already cover, but it’s something that’s going to move more into their focus, since it offers opportunity to grow their business. It’s going to influence what the channel will offer and support in the future.”

— Tim Henneveld, COO, TIM AG

“The big challenge with IOT comes from the marriage between operational technology and information technology. Then it becomes about what problem are you trying to solve and not just having IoT for IoT’s sake. For example, how do you marry the operational technology of an underground mine with IT. Those protocols are not the same. You can connect beacons and devices but it doesn’t help if you don’t know what solution you’re trying to create or what problem you’re trying to solve.”

— Anton Herbst, CEO, Tarsus Distribution, Tarsus Technology Group

“One of my favorite examples is the influence of IoT technology on vineyards. Owners of vineyards put sensors in the ground to measure the soil humidity, soil content. Then, with that insight, they are able through historical data to predict wine futures and quality of wine outcomes. The soil is critically important to the quality of grapes. As more vendors and partners start thinking about selling IoT, remember that you have to do it in the language of the vineyard. You have to describe the business value of your solution in the context of an industry vertical.”


“IoT will continue to bring challenge and opportunity to distributors and channel partners. The rapid rate of change in the industry is placing more emphasis and criticality on engagement and execution. By working together (with vendors and channel partners) to ID our common goals, we become stronger, more strategic and are able to help channel partners deliver the service experience businesses want and need to realize their potential and exceed their goals.”

— Kirk Robinson, SVP Go-to-Market, Ingram Micro

IoT a Big Focus for Channel Executives

of channel exec respondents said they’re already o�eringor planning to introduce IoT solutions through distribution

72%


Mobility

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Mobility is far more than wi fi networks and smartphones. Distributors today develop more complex, more secure enterprise-class mobility solutions that incorporate multiple touch points on the network. In many cases, mobility touches many other subject areas in this report such as IoT, data center, vertical markets and more. As more mobile vendors turn to distribution, the opportunity for the channel increases as well.

“Today, the number of technology start-ups entering the market continues to accelerate, many of them launching with a mobile application. That’s indicative of the importance mobility has in our everyday lives and it’s going to continue into 2017 and beyond. It behooves all of us to start thinking with a mobile mindset.”

— Ilona Weiss, President, ABC Data

“The emergence of the mobile workforce is empowering IT resellers to extend the value added services they’ve been providing the end-market with for decades. You can do more with mobile phones today than ever and they are increasing in the role around business productivity. We’re working to bring a robust lineup of phones into distribution as unlocked devices that you can add value services to and turn it into a productive device for your customer.”

— Greg Taylor, Vice President, Sales, Samsung Electronics America

“Security is a big drive in mobility right now. The market is creating more devices, but we don’t even know all of them in a corporate environment. Next year, will be about being more predictive, not just protect and control. How can we predict user behavior and what security should there be? Mobility is more than selling mobility for mobility’s sake.”

— Anton Herbst, CEO, Tarsus Distribution, Tarsus Technology Group

“Mobility is enabling the edge of the network, creating gateways for driving connectivity. Ten years ago, the PC was on the edge of the network. Then it was the phone. Now every device is at the edge of the network, which needs some form of connectivity. Mobility is not just phones. It’s how any device is secured, managed, connected. That’s the basis for where IoT is coming.”

— Rob Moyer, Vice President, Cloud and Software Solutions, SYNNEX

GTDCMEMBERS

Technology Distributors Delivering End-to-End Mobile Solutions…

• Device activation• Application loading• Security controls• Maintenance


“The Internet revolution and the rapidly advancing process of digitalization cause rapid and deep transformation of the global tech market. Some vendors merge or take over other players. Others look for ways to maximize their competence in the field of advanced services. Some companies even withdraw from the consumer market and focus only on business sector. The goal is to maximize economies of scale and increase margins. Similar changes can be seen on the side of the key distributors who transform their business models. For example, we have successfully expanded into European markets, built own cloud platform and developed competences in the field of value-added services. The sooner the vendors and distributors implement appropriate changes, the better they will be prepared for technological and business challenges of the digital world.”

— Ilona Weiss President, ABC Data

“We envision distributors selling devices on a consumption-based model as a means to attach public cloud services like Office 365, Enterprise Mobility Suite for Security, or Windows Enterprise subscription-as-a-service. This represents an immediate opportunity for distributors around the world. The business rationale makes sense and distributors are quickly absorbing and operationalizing the concept. The market opportunity is huge.”

— Jon Strausburg Cloud Sales Director, SMB&D, Microsoft

New Business Models

“VMware values distributors for implementation, demand generation, and recruitment around hyper-converged. A big advantage for us is that we have software-defined data center-as-a service. To be in a distributor’s cloud marketplace and expose our offering to traditional VMware channel to MSPs to telcos and more is absolutely fantastic. We look forward to working closely with our distributors in 2017.”

— Frank Rauch Vice President, Americas Partner Organization, VMware

“Vendors must still invest and believe in distribution. That’s something that’s easy to say, but more difficult to achieve. If vendors don’t put in the effort, there are a lot of new vendors that believe distribution is the right tool to reach the market, and then new opportunities for Distributors able to support the channel transition.”

— Conxi Palmero Investor Relations Manager, Computer Gross Italia

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Digital technologies have changed the way distributors conduct business. These new business models, particularly around cloud, mobility, vertical markets, emerging companies, security and enterprise technologies, will continue to grow in 2017, executives said, because millennials and end users increasingly have higher expectations for leveraging IT anywhere, anytime.

600+ New Vendors...Entered partnerships with GTDC members over the past 24 months


Professional Audio/Video

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The professional audio/video market has seen a significant uptake in B2B solutions, which is driving the development of even more opportunities to fit the technology in non-traditional environments, according to executives. Distributors are helping to drive the growth by integrating pro A/V into bigger solutions and recruiting new types of solution providers to the space.

“We see more technologies becoming implemented and adapted on drones. In the broadcasting industry, the market is demanding more powerful solutions beyond 4K, requesting 8K and 360-degree cameras. In addition, two trends we see are in entertainment (capturing video, taking photos and for gaming) and in the enterprise (applications for drones out in the field monitoring). For example safety or supporting agriculture functions that attracts government to consider major investments.”

— Aleksandrs Orlovs, Business Development Director, ELKO Grupa

”We see big market expansion through new product offerings, especially within our commercial display lineup. Look for big opportunity in new platforms for digital signage: outdoor, LED, mirrored, and stretch displays. Our partners are finding many more creative ways to sell technology, and adding their own services to outfit a whole solution.”

— Greg Taylor, Vice President, Sales, Samsung Electronics America

“This past year, we entered the market with new B2B products and saw a significant overall revenue increase year-over-year. In 2017, we will continue to count on our distributors to design specific marketing initiatives to capture new customers. This year, the number of Sharp resellers increased more than 200%. As the B2B market continues to grow, we will leverage distribution’s core competencies such as marketing, supply chain and credit to target new customer segments.”

— John Sheehan, Associate Vice President, Pro AV Sales, Sharp Imaging and Information Company of America

“The digital signage market is expected to continue to grow at a healthy pace. With the cost of displays going down, we help our partners stay profitable by providing the creation and distribution of the content used on the screens. This enables the channel to offer a complete digital signage solution while earning a recurring revenue stream for ongoing use of the content. Services that offer resellers and integrators new and recurring revenue streams are imperative for 2017 and beyond, especially initiatives that add value without the need to add in-house staff or expertise, such as content creation for digital signage, nation-wide installation services or even control system programming.”

— Sam Taylor, Executive Vice President, COO, Almo Professional A/V.

Distributors Capitalizing on Pro A/V

EntertainmentEducationEnterprise Business

The E’s have it…

Security

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Threats to customer information, business plans and financial records will continue to be a major concern into 2017 and beyond. In the channel, distributors are proactively seeking new security relationships, building integrated solutions and developing security relationships with non-traditional security vendors. Everyone in the channel—vendors, distributors and solution providers—need to think more outside the box to ensure data is adequately protected against a constantly-changing threat landscape, according to executives. That includes more integrated solutions and platform-based ecosystems.

“Most big security vendors have started to recognize that customers want a more complete and effective solution—better ROI on their investment. As a result, we’re seeing a big shift from point products to platforms. You can already see some ramifications—bigger players picking up smaller companies to complete their platform play. Channel partners and distributors need to think about the platforms they align themselves with and make sure they have technologies to fill in gaps. It’s not about consolidation for consolidation’s sake.”

— Carol Giles Neslund, General Manager, Vice President, Westcon-Comstor Security Solutions

“Distribution is the scaling engine for our security solutions to drive reach and growth. They deliver valuable partner enablement and help them understand the business value that our offers unlock. We are activating a new niche set of partners in manufacturing, automation, healthcare, retail and finance that have built a business around security services. We’re confident our distributors will show us creative ways to open up that market.”

— Julie Hens, Vice President, Global Distribution Sales, Cisco Systems

“The growth of cloud computing and cloud security has led to a transformation of the cyber security industry and our business. It begins with our product roadmaps, go-to-market approach, product pricing and transaction model with the proliferation of APIs—all crucial to the business. In order for us to do all of that successfully, it has to be a collaborative effort with our distributors. Distribution is helping us with this evolution as a force multiplier.”

— Erick Foy, Director, NAM Channel Sales, Symantec

Seizing on Sea Shifts

Distribution industryaddressing the movefrom point productsto security platforms

“We’ve been talking about XaaS platforms, outcome-based models for quite some time. We’re starting to see a crossing of the chasm for that demand and volume is starting to grow. Distribution is at the forefront of where all that comes together. We’re seeing the channel step up and respond to meet the need in the marketplace. We’ll grow and evolve with them.”

— Stephanie Dismore Vice President, General Manager, Americas Commercial Channel, HP

“Partners are looking at us to provide incremental security services. There’s an expectation that we can go deeper into our services offerings in that regard. It’s a demand coming from partners that can’t make investments to do it themselves.”

— Miriam Murphy Senior Vice President, North Region EMEA, Avnet TS

Services

“More of our reseller base is moving toward some sort of managed services offering, adding a certain amount of hosted services such as data migration or solutions based on Microsoft Office 365. We’ve been working to cater a transactional annuity model to our SMB customer base. Other growing services include: post-sales support, plus life cycle and annuity based financial services.”


“Everyone will be doing data migration as a service to help people get to cloud. That’s why we build the CLOUDSolv community and a platform. This is going to be the next version of partner communities. We have overlap with our current base but we’re also finding born-in-the-cloud guys looking to us for services.”

— Rob Moyer Vice President, Cloud and Software Solutions, SYNNEX

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Services are an increasingly important component of distributors’ offerings and that will only increase going forward, executives said. In a new survey for the GTDC, vendor channel executives expect partner recruitment and cloud-related services to grow the most in 2017. As demand for everything-as-a-service (XaaS) increases, so do investments from distributors to meet those needs.

The Road Ahead

1) Partner Recruitment2) Cloud Related3) Partner Enablement


Channel execs cited these services as fastest growing through distribution in 2017:

“The greatest strength of distribution is the power or partnerships. Distribution’s vast network of alliances provides partners the ability to build integrated solutions, services and collaborative marketing campaigns, spanning across multiple supplier lines. We expect this to accelerate in 2017.”

—Tracy Balent Director, North America Distribution, Veeam

“We want more partners selling our as-a-service offerings, whether it’s software-as-a-service, infrastructure-as-a-service, platform-as-a-service, to expand our reach. I feel a sense of urgency on that. The market is moving so fast and we need to stay ahead of market. We are totally dependent on distributors to drive IBM’s success, strategy and agenda with those partners. It’s not better, but faster.”

— Michele Stern Vice President, North America Business Partners, IBM

Vendor Relationships

“Vendors have to start to look at their alliances and partnerships more. How they can build solutions leveraging other players as well. We see that as a major opportunity for lots of vendors to grow, by working with us at the vendor-to-vendor level to develop solutions.”

— Miriam Murphy Senior Vice President, North Region EMEA, Avnet

“Our job is to provide value to both vendors and solution providers. The better we work with vendors, the easier it is to turn their products and services into best-of-breed solutions ready for market. I think vendors today increasingly recognize the value we provide augmenting their offerings with supplemental professional services, training and offering complimentary products to complete the security solution set. In addition, solution providers can count on the fact that we’ve vetted options in the marketplace, identified the best technology and then bring them all parts of the solution.”

— Carol Giles Neslund General Manager, Vice President, Westcon-Comstor Security Solutions

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New vendors—and new technologies—are vying to get to market and it’s up to distributors to vet and develop those relationships while building integrated, multi-vendor solutions and enabling solution providers to sell the new products. For both vendors and distributors, the desire to get the latest solutions to market has never been more heightened. Here’s a look at what executives expect next year:

Indirect will grow morerapidly than direct

No material change betweendirect and indirect business

We are 100% indirect withno plans on going direct

61.8%

18.2%

Direct business will growmore rapidly than indirect 7.3%

12.7%

October 2016 Survey of 70+ IT Vendor Channel Executives

2017 Expectations ofDirect vs. Indirect Sales

“As we move into describing business value, we are becoming vertically oriented. This challenges vendors, distributors and solution providers because now end-user customers ask for the business value to be described in context of their industry. We are going through this transition now. If you’re going to participate in third-platform technologies, you need to be thinking about industry relevance.”

— Rich Hume COO, Tech Data

“We’re seeing a lot of momentum around ‘microverticals. Partners are coming out of nowhere that are really niche players in small industries. They’re finding a niche market and dominating by building cloud and IoT solutions that are regulated and able to connect devices on the edge of the network. For example, like cameras for public safety or control features for buildings. Most building control systems are disparate, like solar or security. There’s a big opportunity to figure out how to put them all on the same network and control them in a secure, regulated way.”

— Rob Moyer Vice President, Software and Cloud Services, SYNNEX

Vertical Markets

“VARS are focused not only on the compliance and structural needs of companies in key verticals, but they’re also building reference architectures and validating solutions that apply across a range of verticals. For example, resellers are building standardized solutions for financial services, real estate and hospitality markets, layering in specifics that solve challenges that are unique to each industry.”


“We are focusing efforts with a number of vendors to use our call centers for specific vertical initiatives. Most recently with Microsoft and cloud-led vertical offerings. We have an SMB Health initiative with Microsoft in Saudi Arabia. That’s a great opportunity going forward for the channel.”

— Michael Papaeracleous Executive Director, Distribution, Logicom

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Vertical markets continue to be a major focus for distributors, who have invested in building out industry-specific solutions for solution providers that incorporate technologies from multiple vendors. Look for even more in 2017 as distributors look to integrate cloud, mobility and newer technologies into their vertical market programs and solutions—as well as value-added services such as call centers.

Quenching the Thirst in 2017

78%The majority of vendor channel execs surveyed said they expect distributors to develop new business around vertical market solutions

October 2016 survey of 70+ IT vendor channel executives


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Takeaways to Tout Across the Board:

Good Relationships Getting Even Better From analytics to vertical markets, from cloud to security, there’s no shortage of opportunity for the IT distribution industry in 2017. As you’ve read in the preceding pages, executives expect business to grow—and for vendors to rely more heavily on an increasing number of distribution services and programs.

More than 600 net new vendors have forged partnerships with GTDC members in the last two years, many looking for distributors to drive partner recruitment, enablement, financing, sales support, technical support—and much more. It seems all sides are committed to not only working together, but also to making good relationships even better.

Among the expectations for progress in 2017:• More solutions enablement and partner skills development• Continued business model evolution and transformation due to changes in how technology is acquired and consumed • More net-new partners—and new kinds of partners—as technology expands to non-traditional devices• Tighter distributor-to-vendor alliances to support multi-vendor solutions

Of course, there’s much to do to get there. Channel success is more journey than destination. Vendors still need more executive buy-in at headquarters; both sides sometimes clash over realistic goals and expectations for channel sales; and distributors are still ramping up in leading-edge technology categories like cloud and IoT. Fortunately, vendors, distributors and solution providers seem willing to roll up their sleeves and work together toward creating an IT channel that benefits everyone.

Learn More Down to the SKU level! The GTDC’s database partners provide a window into the world of technology distributors that you will not find anywhere else. Actual distributor sales are

the basis—from unit volume to pricing attributes and destination channel data, including down to solution categories and SKU levels. New features will make 2017 insight more valuable than ever!

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Our education services include in-depth training to help anyone on your team become more effective in developing distribution partnerships and channel business opportunity. Learn more today!

Research Reports that Shed More Light on Distribution Hot SpotsUp your distribution/channel business IQ with in-depth reports on all the latest industry-wide developments.

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https://gtdc.org/research-reports/

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Thanks to the following distribution and vendor channel executives for providing their insight into 2017 trends and expectations.

Tracy Balent, Director, North America Distribution, Veeam (Page13)

Peter DiMarco, Vice President, VAR Sales, D&H Distributing (Page 5 / 12 / 14) Stephanie Dismore, Vice President, General Manager, Americas Commercial Channel, HP (Page 12)

Erick Foy, Director, NAM Channel Sales, Symantec (Page 11)

Tim Henneveld, COO, TIM AG (Page 6 / 7)

Julie Hens, Vice President, Global Distribution Sales, Cisco Systems (Page 11)

Anton Herbst, CEO, Tarsus Distribution, Tarsus Technology Group (Page 7 / 8)

Rich Hume, COO, Tech Data (Page 3 / 6 / 7 / 14)

Sammy Kinlaw, North American Channel Chief, Lenovo (Page 6)

Rob Moyer, Vice President, Software and Cloud Services, SYNNEX (Page 3 / 8 / 12 / 14) Miriam Murphy, Senior Vice President, North Region EMEA, Avnet TS (Page 3 / 4 / 12 / 13)

Carol Giles Neslund, General Manager, Vice President, Westcon-Comstor Security Solutions (Page 11 / 13)

Aleksandrs Orlovs, Business Development Director, ELKO Grupa (Page 4 / 5 / 10)

Conxi Palmero, Investor Relations Manager, Computer Gross Italia (Page 9)

Michael Papaeracleous, Executive Director, Distribution, Logicom (Page 3 / 6 / 14)

Wayne Peters, Senior Director, Arrow Capital Solutions, Arrow Electronics (Page 5)

Frank Rauch, Vice President, Americas Partner Organization, VMware (Page 4 / 9)

Kirk Robinson, SVP Go-to-Market, Ingram Micro (Page 3 / 7)

John Sheehan, Associate Vice President, Pro AV Sales, Sharp Imaging and Information Company of America (Page10)

Michele Stern, Vice President, North America Business Partners, IBM (Page 13)

Jon Strausburg, Cloud Sales Director, SMB&D, Microsoft (Page 5 / 9)

Greg Taylor, Vice President, Sales, Samsung Electronics America (Page 8 / 10)

Sam Taylor, Executive Vice President, COO, Almo Professional A/V (Page 10)

Ilona Weiss, President, ABC Data (Page 8 / 9)

Insights Into 2017 - GTDC · deployments and offering a route to create and offer data center...

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