CRN Interview

ACCELERATING VALUE

Ingram Micro CEO Paul Bay:

‘Our People, Our Experience And Our Execution Are What Diff erentiate Us Today’

BY CJ FAIRFIELD

With a $550 million investment to lay the foundation for the Xvantage digital experience platform, Ingram Micro is set to accelerate how it does business and bring more value to its partners.

Xvantage is a personalized platform that uses automation intelligence and machine learning to help partners perform a multitude of tasks for employees and customers, such as order and status tracking and customer service.

“It’s not like we’re just starting this journey,” said Ingram Micro CEO Paul Bay. “We made a real company investment both organically and through acquisition to set that foundation to help us accelerate what we’re going to do with Xvantage.”

Ingram Micro’s trove of customer data and how the distributor uses it is a “diff erentiator for us today,” he said.

“But I would tell you it’s going to be a game-changer for us tomorrow,” he said. “We’re here, and we’re that business behind the brand.”

Bay spoke with CRN for an exclusive interview to talk about the Xvantage platform, the supply chain, the distributor’s culture and more.

Edited excerpts of the conversation follow.

What are you most excited about when it comes to Xvantage?

This is one of the biggest opportunities we have at our company in creating a digital twin. We’re going to consumerize distribution, remove a bunch of friction and accelerate value for our customers and our vendor partners. The net of it is we really want to make it easier to do business with us.

There are three areas we want to focus on that start with our customer, what we’re doing internally and with our vendors. We’re enabling our team and customers to work faster, smarter and more collaboratively. We’re doing that at scale and around the world too. I think that’s an important element of what we’re doing. We’re able to do this on a global basis, so it’s not country-specifi c and we’re not trying to do it country by country.

How will Xvantage transform how partners do business and make money?

It’s being able to take the friction, manual processes and the complexity of our industry out. If you’re a solution provider, the challenges that they have today … they have many diff erent choices, lots of diff erent products, many diff erent skill sets that they have to ultimately focus on, and that end customer and business outcome. If we’re focusing on business outcomes, the amount of effort they have to go through to get the certifi cations with the solutions, there’s a half-dozen products that make up a solution, how do they go about that process? That’s being able to provide that at the right time, the right off ering at the right level and the right pricing, and that’s going to help take that friction out. It’s going to allow them time to have a diff erent and even further business conversation with the end user. It’s going to allow us to be, as we say, the business behind the world’s leading brands.

Why is digital experience transformation so important to Ingram Micro and its solution provider customers?

It goes back to how we’re going to serve our customers and the cost of service today in our industry, and being able to have that single pane of glass. I go back to the complexity of this industry: … There are so many ways for us to go about solving for a business outcome and us being able to allow that at the right time. One of the biggest opportunities we have as an industry—and what we’re going to be able to do with the data and the insight—is help partners with their end users make realtime decisions with the data.

What growth opportunities do you see for your SMB partners?

First is being able to add their services, so where they’re going to be specialized and where they’re going to add their services. Also, where can they lean on us to provide and augment their solutions and off erings? Areas where we continue to invest are if they have solutions, more certifications, whether it’s around security, IoT, data center and what’s currently going on with 5G. It’s really understanding where those opportunities are and then focusing and using Ingram Micro to bring everything together. I get asked all the time what I wish this industry and ecosystem would do, and I go back to [the idea that if] it takes many products to make up a business outcome

Natalie Eicher is a National Board Certifi ed Health & Wellness Coach as well as the co-founder and co-CEO of Mettacool, a coaching consultancy that focuses on women. She spoke with CRN Executive Editor Jennifer Follett about a number of issues facing women in the workplace today, from insecurities about networking and selfpromotion to the impacts of the “Me Too” movement. Here is an ‘Our People, Our Experience And Our Execution Are What Diff erentiate Us Today’ edited excerpt of the conversation.

or solution then how do we make sure that we’re able to provide that service for them? They’ve got to be able to focus on partnering with each other and being able to provide that outcome. The focus is working partner to partner. Global is becoming more of an opportunity that we hear many of our solution providers of all sizes asking of us and the vendor community—to show up with a persistent and predictable model of how we can deliver on a global basis.

How have supply chain issues changed your partners’ behaviors?

The partner behaviors have been getting more narrow in terms of off erings and what they’re trying to solve for. It’s a cleaner supply chain even now with work-from-home and even from some of the higher-end, more technical products. The business is still challenged, whether it’s chips or whatnot, from a supply chain standpoint. Partners have gotten even more specifi c and laser-focused on taking that end-user opportunity and how that works back through Ingram Micro and ultimately out to the vendors. You may have a business outcome that takes seven, eight, 10 products to fulfi ll, and if you’re missing one or two products you have to sit and wait for those two remaining products. It’s about how do we help fi gure out what the technologies can be to off set that. It’s making sure that we have a much cleaner ecosystem than we’ve had probably a dozen years ago from an industry standpoint.

How would you describe Ingram Micro’s culture?

We’re a people-fi rst culture. We start with the customer and work our way back in and make sure that we have the best talent. It’s still a relationship business that we’re in, so it’s about making sure we have the right people and the best talent, and that’s super important as a culture that’s led by the people, our customers and our vendors.

Susan O’Sullivan was recently promoted to vice president of DEI at Ingram Micro. Why is DEI so important to the company?

DEI [diversity, equity and inclusion] is super important, as is ESG [environmental, social and governance] from a company perspective. Having someone with the skill set and the experience of Susan that comes out of sales and has been with Ingram Micro for so long is important for us. We want to make sure we’ve got the right diversity throughout the industry and the company and are making sure we’re leading with what the opportunities are. We’re super excited that Susan took on this opportunity after wearing the sales hat and being the Buff alo, [N.Y], leader. What Susan has done for so many years—having that experience of making us a better company as we go out and recruit—has been awesome.

What do you think makes Ingram Micro better than its competitors?

Our people, our experience and our execution are what diff erentiate us today and why we lead in the industry. Ingram Micro is the business behind the brand of both the established, largest technology companies, whether it’s vendors or customers, and also emerging companies. We’ve brought to market many emerging companies on a global basis. We’re that business behind their brand. We stand behind them 100 percent. Together with our partners we’re reaching 90 percent of the global population, so it’s our reach in being able to help and invest in their future and the health of their business on a go-forward basis and being that indispensable business partner. Our reach is the broadest in our industry.

What will we see from Ingram Micro through the rest of the year and into 2023?

You’re going to see a huge eff ort in getting Xvantage launched at scale with our partners in many countries. It’s a global rollout that we’re doing. You’re going to see us continue to deliver a consistent experience for both our vendors and our customers in being that global leader. We’ll continue to focus on operational excellence and new business every single day and also on how we make sure we’re helping our partners capture this business value for all. We’re going to invest in the areas where our partners are looking for the help to supplement and augment business needs that are out there and do it at scale for them. 

OPPORTUNITY IS CALLING Delivering Business Outcomes: Ingram Micro Helps Partners Bridge The Gaps In Their Services Off erings

BY JOSEPH F. KOVAR

John Dusett

Executive Director, U.S. Cloud Services

Tim FitzGerald

VP, Global Cloud Channel Technical, Services As the need for solution providers to build up a stronger services portfolio continues to rise, Ingram Micro is working to help partners make the transition in a variety of ways, regardless of how far along the path to a services-led strategy they are.

From selling and implementing services on their own to helping them team with other solution providers to fi ll in gaps in their off erings, solution providers can fi nd the help they need from Ingram Micro to move toward higher-margin services, said Ingram Micro executives.

“We are talking with our partners about an overall shift to services in their business,” said John Dusett, executive director of the company’s U.S. cloud services. “And very often that’s why we’re using ‘Everything as a Service’ as we talk about this.”

It is critically important for Ingram Micro to be able to bring the right services to bear to help partners with their end-user customers, Dusett said.

“You’ll see that come across in partner to partner, which is connecting partners to have services capability, or bringing in third parties that we have relationships with, or even companies that over the years we’ve purchased that bring that service capability,” he said.

The move to embrace a wider range of services, and maybe Everything as a Service, is a journey in which many partners are just now taking their fi rst steps, Dusett said. “Today we are actually bringing more partners into selling their fi rst cloud solution than we were a year ago,” he said.

The next step is for partners to look at moving one of their core competencies to the cloud, Dusett said.

“We often fi nd partners have a solution that they’re providing to end customers today that is their core competency, is what they’re great at, and help them realize that they can do that using a cloud platform, whether it’s a simple SaaS solution or whether it’s a backup solution,” he said.

It is easy to talk about Software as a Service, Platform as a Service and Infrastructure as a Service, but distribution brings it all together with all the other parts that go into a complete services offering, said Tim FitzGerald, vice president of global cloud channel technical and services at Ingram Micro.

“It is really anchored on delivering business outcomes for line-of-business decision-makers,” FitzGerald said. “You begin to incorporate many other aspects of what’s involved in delivering that complete solution.”

Ingram Micro helps solution providers leave no opportunity behind, said Greg Henson, founder and chairman of the Henson Group, a Miami-based Microsoft cloud solution provider that generates nearly all of its revenue from services.

Henson Group employs about 200 people worldwide and depends on Ingram Micro to bring its services and those of other channel partners to bear when needed, Henson said.

“We’re transparent about it,” he said. “We tell customers about Ingram Micro and tell them it’s a multibillion-dollar company backing us up. And customers love it.”

The market, meanwhile, is challenged by an unprecedented talent shortage, both on the channel and the customer side, FitzGerald said. He cited a late 2021 survey from research fi rm Gartner that found that 64 percent of IT executives see the talent shortage as the most significant barrier to adopting emerging technologies. That, he said, leads end customers to increasingly employ outside parties to mitigate that shortage.

“But it’s not just an end-user challenge. … Partners want to have the capability and competency to span all the solution areas where their customers have need,” he said. “That means a high level of certifi cations in lots of diff erent, important vendor lines, not just textbook smarts, but the practical application of that knowledge to deliver tangible business value.”

Between Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services, there are maybe 600 different services available to customers, of which his team can cover 60 percent to 70 percent, Henson said.

“But in certain areas like IoT and blockchain that are not as commonly off ered, it’s easier for us to bring in Ingram Micro,” he said. “They help fi ll those gaps for a lot of smaller to midsize partners. And if Ingram Micro’s pre- and postsales professional services teams don’t have the capabilities, Ingram Micro has a database of partners who do, all with Ingram’s stamp of approval.”

Henson said his company is planning to qualify for that database, called Ingram Micro Link, this year to provide support for other channel partners as well.

Sam Barhoumeh, founder and CEO of ReadyNetworks, a North Palm Beach, Fla.-based solution provider and tierone Gold-level Microsoft cloud solution provider, said that his company is a part of Ingram Micro Link, which enables partners to work with each other.

“I know what services Ingram has available,” Barhoumeh said. “So if there’s something I don’t have, I know where to go at Ingram Micro to get it. If there are three use cases a client needs and I can provide one, I’m not going to tell the client to look elsewhere. I know I can find the right partners with help from Ingram Micro.”

As a distributor, Ingram Micro plays a critical role in helping to raise partner competency levels with easier paths to gaining that knowledge via training and its sales and technical teams, FitzGerald said. “We’re delivering ‘Growth as a Service’ in a way,” he said.

For example, Dusett said, partners who don’t have a particular competency can lean on Ingram Micro to help build that competency or bring in third-party services to build and deploy solutions. “How do you build a great migration practice to get to the cloud?” he said. “If [the partner has] it, we’re simply giving them advice on how to optimize it. If they don’t, we’re bringing those services to them, either Ingram ourselves or other third parties that we have behind them.”

The talent shortage is limiting partners’ ability to build many of the competencies they need in order to deliver more solutions as a service to their customers, FitzGerald said.

“We’re here to augment the partner’s capability to meet the needs of their clients,” he said. “And that means we do services delivery through partners out to their end customers.”

Dusett cited Ingram Micro’s Security Expert Program that helps partners really understand what a well-run cybersecurity practice looks like, with a focus on enabling their technical capabilities and their customer acquisition capabilities.

“We have a consultative engagement to understand how the partner does their security assessments today, ensuring that they’ve got a methodology,” he said. “And if they don’t, or if it’s not up to market requirements, we bring them our own security assessment services capability that they can bring right out to their end customers.”

Ingram Micro has a long line card of security services, including assessments in general infrastructure, application modernization, collaboration and work-anywhere, data and AI, security and business applications that often span multiple hyperscalers, FitzGerald said.

“The Security Expert Program was an investment we made because we wanted to approach the partner in a way that they got to deliver a full business outcome for the customer, not just the service,” Dusett said. “We’re not just trying to sell penetration testing. We’re trying to help them solve a business outcome for an end customer.”

There are other barriers for partners looking to stand up a security service in addition to the talent shortage, including the investment needed to set up the right sales and marketing capabilities, Dusett said.

“It’s difficult in a services business. … So we’ve been very laser-focused on where can we make investments in sales and marketing, in vendor programs, in technical certifications, etc.,” he said. “All of those things are ways that we’re trying to lower the barrier for a partner to be able to take off in their business. [And] we’ve even gotten into creative financing solutions for services partners who may not realize how much cash they need to get their services business up and going.”

Ingram Micro is also helping partners provide services to federal government customers, said Tony Celeste, executive director and general manager of public sector for the distributor.

“Cloud adoption has helped generate interest in the move and the shift—even on software—from perpetual licensing to subscription,” Celeste said. “It’s far easier in [government] budget environments when dealing with annual budgets to take advantage of this stuff.”

Public sector services, a fast-growing business for Ingram Micro, is complicated by the fact that 80 percent of typical government spending on an annual basis goes toward sustaining existing infrastructure, Celeste said. The federal government also suffers from a talent shortage caused in part by a lot of experienced personnel retiring during the pandemic, he said.

“So now you’re dealing with a very limited budget for any new initiatives,” he said. “And, as you can imagine, in the government space going through that capital acquisition process for solutions is incredibly complicated. [And so] partners are looking for those solutions from us.”

Ingram Micro is providing financial solutions that aggregate multiple technologies and services for public sector customers, from simple traditional leasing to full utility consumption models, Celeste said.

“We’re providing that aggregation and those financial solutions to the partner [and] simplifying that for them in tailored financial solutions as a service,” he said.

IT services are very different when it comes to public sector versus commercial customers, said Kush Kumar, CRO of Red River, a Claremont, N.H.-based solution provider and MSP.

Commercial customers prefer managed services so they can stay out of the business of IT, Kumar said.

“In the public sector, however, customers want to own the services,” he said. “They want things as a service where they’re paying by the drink. So we own the assets for government clients and provide them a capability in a utility model. You can’t call it managed services.”

Working with the government is more of an outcome-based business with technology provided as a service, Kumar said.

Red River works with Ingram Micro to provide those services, along with architecture support, delivery support and logistics that let the solution provider provide best-of- breed technologies, Kumar said.

“When we offer as a service, the customer doesn’t care if, say, the networking is based on Cisco or Juniper or Aruba,” he said. “They care about the capabilities. This allows us to provide the best infrastructure with CoTS [commercial off-the-shelf] integration. I tell the OEMs it’s their job to make the best technology in the world and our job to make it work.” 

Tony Celeste

Executive Director, GM, Public Sector