Distribution Roundup: Ingram, Pax8, Telarus M&A Highlight Q2
Whether you make money through resale or commissions, this is for you.
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An IBM veteran brought her talents to Tech Data‘s marketing department.
Catherine Solazzo now serves as senior vice president of marketing for the distributor. Previously she worked as IBM’s vice president of ecosystem marketing. She explained the differences between the jobs, as well as what drove her to make the change in a podcast interview with us.
Craig Galbraith wrote about Solazzo’s appointment.
A former candy executive joined the value-added distributor as its chief information officer.
Rachel Hayden will work as ScanSource’s senior executive vice president and CIO. She previously worked at Bethlehem, Israel-based candy company Just Born.
Edward Gately has the scoop.
Intelisys’ expanded Cisco relationship marks a milestone.
Although Cisco has partnered with Intelisys’ parent company, ScanSource, for 14 years, it now sells its WebEx offerings through Intelisys agents.
Intelisys also hired Michael Sterl, an entrepreneur and former Vonage channel leader, as its senior vice president of sales.
Read about the hiring and supplier news.
Ziply, which recently acquired certain Frontier Communications assets, is courting agents.
The Washington state-based company is working with 20-plus partners, including AppSmart and Intelisys, in its inaugural program. Ziply bought Frontier’s Northwest operations and assets in 2020.
Learn more about Ziply.
D&H Distributing is looking to rise to no. 3 in the distribution market.
D&H reported 34% growth in its VAR business. Its U.S. and Canadian reach has gone over $5 billion, according to the company.
Take a gander at Craig Galbraith’s story.
PlanetOne, the Arizona-based firm, brought its sales and supplier partners together for an in-person event.
PlanetOne hosted a golf event in Scottsdale, Arizona. Approximately 150 people attended. CEO Ted Schuman said they jumped at the chance to see each other.
“We ordinarily would run a contest and offer incentives to participate in an event like this,” he said. “We just picked a date and threw it out on two emails. And 72 hours later we had a field of 100 golfers from all over the country flying in.”
Check out Edward Gately’s visual recap of PlanetOne’s event.
The U.K. distributor bought a fellow British disti.
Nuvias Group bought Cloud Distribution, which brings a focus on emerging technologies. For now the two companies will operate with their respective brands.
Read about the purchase and Christine Horton’s follow-up with Nuvias’ CEO.
Perhaps no partner caught the eyes of the channel last quarter more than Upstack.
The New York-based agency and purchasing platform announced a $50 million private equity investment. It went on to announce multiple acquisitions of fellow telco agents, including Cloudnexion, PacTech Partners and M2 Enterprise Group.
Read the story we wrote about Upstack’s founding and funding.
Another quarter, another Telarus acquisition.
The Utah-based company purchased Comtel Communications, a Virginia-based firm that works with about 100 subagents and 350 suppliers.
Telarus is getting a loyal partner base, while Comtel’s owners have found what they describe as a safe environment to guard the well-being of their subagents.
Read about the Comtel acquisition.
On the personnel front, Telarus welcomed a big name to its leadership team.
Dan Foster, formerly of Ericsson, Fusion Connect and MegaPath, joined the services distributor as chief revenue officer. He replaced Meghan Hambacher Wilkinson, who has since moved to Upstack.
Read about the appointment.
This one generated no shortage of controversy.
It started with a source expressing their concern over the racial implications of the term “master agent.” Then other people in the channel weighed in on how they feel we need a new term that better represents what these companies provide.
Of course, plenty of people did not agree and they made their sentiments heard in the comment section.
“The term Master Agent does not bother me one single bit. So tired of the WOKE. What a joke,” one person rhymed.
Then Eclipse Telecom’s Dave Dyson penned a blistering article urging partners to adopt terminology. He will be calling master agents “technology services distributors” and subagents “partners.”
“The one thing we all have in common is that we serve our families, our customers, our teams and our communities, but we are never subservient. In many ways, we the partners and the technology services distributors are part of the same team. Our relationships matter, and we are all better together. We deserve a term that honors all of that.”
Check out a summary of the debate.
Direct-selling agents spoke out about the pain points and concerns consolidation is causing.
Previously when agents complained about M&A, they were talking about carrier consolidation. But now that conversation has extended to the service distributors.
For Christopher Scott, who owns an agency, neither vendor consolidation nor distributor consolidation presents a problem. But the combination could limit choices and protection for smaller partners.
“No one thing is really a terrible ill. It’s the way that they all fit together that is putting the end user – our clients – and subagents at risk, and limiting the degree to which we can do something about it,” he said.
Read parts one and two of our consolidation series.
ARG added to the growing number of agent acquisitions.
Technology consultancy and MSP purchased two telecom consultancies in two months. Most recently longtime ARG partner Freedom Solutions Group joined the fold.
Read more about ARG’s strategy.