TD Synnex Execs Make the Case for a Strong Fiscal Year Ahead

TD SYNNEX COMMUNITYSOLV NORTH AMERICAN CONFERENCE — TD Synnex kicked off its first conference with its combined North American communities, TechSelect and Varnex, in Orlando on Monday. The opening keynote served as a primer for the 1,000-member audience, a discourse of what’s to come economically for the recently merged TD Synnex.

TD Synnex’s Rich Hume

Rich Hume, TD Synnex CEO, told the crowd that 2022 didn’t have the same growth attributes as what the industry experienced in 2021.

“But when the books are written, it will show that ’22 was a great year again in the IT industry,” he said. “There were some shorts and longs but, overall, a very strong year.”

However, there was a caveat.

“When I meet with investors, that’s not what they want to talk about. They want to talk about what’s going to happen in 2023. … When we think ahead [to next year], we’re talking about inflation. We’re talking about higher interest rates. We’re talking about recessionary times. We’re talking about challenges in the entire market. So how do we plan for our businesses moving forward?”

Hume reassured the audience. Although the PC market has slowed during the unprecedented COVID-19 era, data center and infrastructure carrier categories are robust, he said.

A company survey of reseller partners suggests that 80% of respondents say that 2023 will be a growth year. Additionally, 70% of resellers said that they will leverage the TD Synnex ecosystem more frequently. That 50-year-old ecosystem includes 22,000 employees and 150,000 customers.

“The best defense is a great offense. And what we mean by that is thinking about where there are growth opportunities that can be exploited, not only right in front of you but for the next decade.”

These areas of opportunity, according to Hume, include servers and storage, networking and everything related to data centers. It also surrounds cybersecurity, IoT and analytics and cloud-based technologies.

He ended his speech on a high note, one that put to rest any fears about a recession.

“There is no other industry that has prospered the way the IT industry has. There’s no other industry that has brought value to the world as technology has. So I consider myself very, very fortunate to work within that construct,” he said.

Supply Chain Concerns Not Disappearing

Among companies operating in the channel, TD Synnex officials may be most keenly aware of how the supply chain crisis – which has gone well beyond two years – has affected the distribution industry. These circumstances provide some contrast to Hume’s rosier remarks.

Synnex’s Michael Urban

Michael Urban is president, Americas, at TD Synnex. He told the audience that if one examines the data center side of the portfolio, the company is still experiencing a large backlog with major vendor partners.

“What everyone is saying is that it will get better next year. Let’s see how that goes,” Urban said. “There’s still the issue of components. The biggest issue, if you think about it, is Wi-Fi 6. There’s almost no supply there. That’s for sure an issue for the network infrastructure, but also on the server side and storage side there are still shortages.”

Countering the Pundits

Peter Larocque is president at TD Synnex North America. He provided context about some of the economic challenges possibly heading the industry’s way.

“The market has been greater the past two years. So many people are saying it’s kind of time for a break,” Larocque said. “The fact is that the story of IT becoming a bigger part of people’s business – not just the backend but the entire business – has been driving a lot of this [economic headwinds]. Inflation has also played a role. You can’t discount the price increases that have happened in North America as not being part of it.”

He added that the IT ecosystem market has grown almost every month in the U.S. over the last 12 months.

“What the heck do the pundits know that we don’t know?” Larocque said. “I think the fact is that regardless of how you look at our business, if times are tough, we’re still going to beat market. Great companies come out of any tough times stronger than they were when they entered, and that’s the mentality that we will have.”