Disti/TSB Updates: Ingram, Bridgepointe, Intelisys, TD Synnex, PlanetOne, More
Another private equity investment. A big CEO reshuffling. A marketplace-distributor acquisition.
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TCG added some high profile executives.
Former ThreatProtector sales leader and Nextiva channel chief Carl Katz joined as executive vice president of partner sales and chief operating officer. Katz told Channel Futures that TCG’s independence from private equity and its MDF model attracted him.
Later, another former Nextiva channel chief, Ira Feuerstein, joined as senior director of business development.
Check out Katz’s interview with Channel Futures.
AppDirect, which owns the B2B marketplace AppSmart, bought a Canadian cloud distributor.
Quebec-based ITCloud agreed to a financially undisclosed deal with AppDirect. ITCloud brings rich Microsoft expertise and bolsters AppSmart’s Canadian footprint.
Read about the acquisition.
Cisco is openly embracing the broker/agent partner model.
The vendor partnered with its second tech solutions brokerage partner. Telarus joined Intelisys with the ability to sell Cisco Webex.
Cisco’s vice president of collaboration partner sales explained the opportunities she sees around the agent model.
Chicago-based technology services distributor TBI is taking its own path amid the surge of private equity into the channel.
Executives from TBI emphasized in interviews and partner presentations that they intend to remain independent of private equity investors.
“Private equity firms are not in it for the long haul and are quickly moving on to the next company once they receive profit,” the company wrote in a blog. “This can result in a company’s long-term vision being undermined and unsuccessful.”
Read the story about TBI.
Ingram Micro‘s longtime CEO moved to a new role.
Alain Monié, who served as Ingram’s top executive for about a decade, transitioned to executive chairman. Paul Bay, previously executive of global technology solutions, is now CEO.
In addition, Ingram grew its go-to-market relationship with identity and access management solution provider Okta.
Read about the changes at the CEO position.
Chicago-based Avant is tackling market research in a big way.
The firm expanded its research division, fueled in part by its investment from private equity firm Pamlico Capital. Now Avant is looking to build more partner-oriented informational resources.
“We can do this in a way that many of the large research firms really can’t do, because they’re not involved in those transactions. They don’t see what’s really happening. We see it in near real-time,” chief strategy officer Alex Danyluk explained in an interview with Channel Futures.
Learn more about the research division.
Google teamed up with Intelisys and TBI to distribute the Chrome OS contact center ecosystem.
Partners of the two distributors can resell Chrome OS and various Chrome OS devices in addition to various Chrome-approved CCaaS vendors and endpoints. Google introduced its ecosystem of integrated solutions in 2021.
We covered the announcement from the perspective of both Intelisys and TBI.
Disti TD Synnex agreed to a strategic collaboration agreement with AWS that will see channel partners receive more resources.
AWS invested in TD Synnex with the expressed intention of driving more SMB and public sector adoption of AWS platforms. To that end, AWS provided personnel for marketing, sales project management and customer support.
TD Synnex also announced a partnership with industrial and health care IoT security provider Claroty.
Kelly Teal covered the AWS agreement.
Utah-based TSB Telarus announced a couple of high-profile hires amid its ongoing employee expansion.
Telarus in January tapped cable veteran Matt Heron as regional vice president for Canada. His predecessor, Brian Ochab, moved to Spiisee Software to be its CEO.
February announced the hire of Julie Dzubay, who was well-known in the channel from her tenure at WTG/AppSmart. She’s now vice president of commission experience.
Read about the Dzubay and Heron hires.
PlanetOne announced two key promotions and continued to develop its business intelligence platform.
Chief operating officer Chris Werpy got a promotion to president, and general manager and vice president Jake Schuman got a promotion to senior vice president.
In addition, PlanetOne has been enhancing its Sentient platform to provide more real-time commissions analytics.
Read about the promotions.
The channel got a glimpse of financial numbers from the industry’s only publicly traded TSB.
ScanSource unveiled its quarterly earnings, which included numbers from Intelisys. Intelisys grew more than 14% year-over-year in net sales and delivered its final payout to its former owners.
In addition, ScanSource recorded a gross profit of $108 million and raised its guidance.
ScanSource executives spoke to Channel Futures about the expansion of the Bank of Intelisys.
Multiple TSBs won awards from Cox Business and RapidScale.
Cox, which owns RapidScale, honored partners for their sales performance. Telarus won top performing distributor, Innovative Business Solutions won top cloud growth distributor, and Avant won top connectivity distributor.
Claudia Adrien covered the awards.
Arguably the biggest story in the TSB world last quarter was Bridgepointe Technologies‘ big private-equity investment.
Charlesbank Capital Partners provided more than $100 million to California-based Bridgepointe. In addition to expanding it staff and tools, Bridgepointe has been investing in its subcontracting IT strategists. The company has handed these agencies official “partner” status, which comes with equity.
Read the initial funding story.
Arguably the biggest story in the TSB world last quarter was Bridgepointe Technologies‘ big private-equity investment.
Charlesbank Capital Partners provided more than $100 million to California-based Bridgepointe. In addition to expanding it staff and tools, Bridgepointe has been investing in its subcontracting IT strategists. The company has handed these agencies official “partner” status, which comes with equity.
Read the initial funding story.
Bridgepointe Technologies‘ private equity funding added to the ongoing story about investment in the distribution channel.
Private equity dominated the conversation in the technology solutions brokerage (formerly known as master agent) channel last year. And it continues to do so. At the same time, the traditional IT distribution space continues to feel the ripple effect of the merger of Tech Data and Synnex. Add to that an instance of convergence where a marketplace provider purchased a cloud distributor.
The first quarter featured an interesting trend in which Google and Cisco both announced new TSB partnerships. In one case, a traditionally VAR-focused vendor is giving agents a chance to directly sell its brand. In the other case, the vendor is opening a way for VARs to bring together hardware and software in a cloud-based fashion.
Partners also weighed in on how they see the brokerage channel leveraging market development funds, launching a conversation that will no doubt continue.
View the 13 images above to see the most important news pertaining to distis and TSBs in the first quarter of 2022. Also check out the fourth-quarter recap if you missed it.
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