LAS VEGAS – Synnex Canada’s pick, pack and ship days are over, according to its president Mitchell Martin.
Martin, at the VARnex Fall Conference, told CDN in an interview that the distributor is done selling products alone.
“We are pushing technology solutions and we are putting all of our energy around the Solv programs. We are getting better at it every year, and over the last year we have gotten more efficient with shared resources and value pools with the U.S. operation,” he said.
Martin added that the Solv programs have enhanced its offering in Canada. Currently, Synnex Canada is offering MobilitySolv, ConvergeSolv, CloudSolv, VisualSolv, ServicesSolv and PrintSolv. Approximately 18 months ago, Synnex only carried the PrintSolv program in Canada.
Some of these Solv programs are in their infancy and still need to be developed fully, but Martin said they each have leadership and there is already significant reseller engagement. “We just want to grow them.”
Synnex Canada is supporting the Solv programs with pre-sales and technical support, designing solutions around the Solv configuration services.
Mobility, for example, is a new area of focus for the Mississauga, Ont.-based distributor. Parent company president Peter Laroque said at the VARnex conference that 95 per cent of its reseller network is not adopting mobile solutions.
Martin agreed, saying that the Canadian market’s lack of IT expertise is one of the issues for the slow adoption. “We all know it’s moving to the IT reseller channel. It’s not an area the business have expertise with. So we are seeing slow adoption, but we will be tenacious and eventually it will converge. We can have influence on that outcome by pushing MobilitySolv hard,” he said.
Synnex Canada has a partnership with Rogers. Martin expects Bell and Telus to join eventually and the activation service is proving to be a good annuity stream of revenue for the channel.
In other news involving Synnex, its partnership with Dell in the U.S. isn’t necessarily coming up North to Canada. Martin told CDN that he is monitoring the situation closely, but there are no firm plans today.
As for HP and its decision to separate the company, Martin’s viewpoint is positive for the channel because by splitting in two, there will be more focus and specialization.
“The separation will create two big vendors are will be more nimble and have an intense focus on their business. We will bend over backwards to make it work for them,” he added.
However, Martin is concerned with on-oing synergies with HP. “They have struggled with that in the past and it’s a broad business. They have adopted many different structures that could have worked better.”
Another area Martin and the Synnex Canada team is working on is the Internet of Things opportunity.
“The possibilities with the Internet of Things are limitless,” he said. Martin confirmed to CDN that the company does have plans to move into sensors and is currently investigating the marketplace.
